The Let's Play Archive

Fire Emblem: Binding Blade

by Melth

Part 1: Chapter 1 and The War Room Part 35 (The Goal)



I’ve also seen the title given as Breath of Fate. Despite the name, not a lot of important stuff actually happens this time. The big plot events begin next chapter; for now it’s a bog-standard random encounter with bandits. This is the Fire Emblem equivalent of meeting in an inn or clearing the rats out of someone’s basement.


Chapter Summary:
The country of Bern (led by the evil King Zephiel) suddenly invades everyone at once, breaking a 1000 year peace. Conveniently, Eliwood (the greatest knight in all of Lycia) is down with gout, so his young and untested son Roy returns home from studying elsewhere and finds his homeland menaced by bandits as well as Bern. Roy is sent to lead his father’s army to join the rest of the Lycian League's forces while his childhood friend, Lilina, is sent home to Ostia for her safety.




Although the main theme is almost as great as usual, the music in game does not get off to a very good start with The Beginning. (#64 on this list http://serenesforest.net/music/binding-blade-game-rip/)




This is the first allusion to the event called the Ending Winter, which wasn’t really important enough to be mentioned directly in FE7, but matters somewhat more here.




You’ll note a more cartoonish sort of style to the map if you’ve played FE7 recently. That holds true of the artwork and style of the game more generally. Although it doesn’t have the glut of joke characters some later FEs had, it’s not a particularly serious entry in the series either.

And Etruria is actually going to matter in this game!




Bern makes a return as the nation of jerks we have to fight against. Hartmut must be so ashamed.




I wonder what the deal is with that little strip of land all the way down the southeastern coasts there. I don’t think we ever see a zoomed in view of that part of the map, so there’s no telling whether there are other Lycian territories there or if it’s all under the control of one of the main port cities or the like.




Ilia still might not matter!




Or Sacae might not!.




And a 1000 year peace was suddenly broken when the militaristic country of Gradaeinolhrern surprise-attacked everyone at once for reasons that will be discovered 20 chapters from now. I take it back, THIS is Fire Emblem’s “You all meet in an inn.”




Looks like a long and difficult way to go through hostile territory, but (as we’ll see) they laid the groundwork for it decently well by allying with traitorous factions in those countries. That makes invading the whole world a bit more plausible.




Those signs apparently include Bern already having invaded according to some villagers in the next chapter. It's kind of inconsistent.




Marquess Eliwood of Pherae, the greatest knight in all of Lycia, has been incapacitated by a bout of bubonic plague. His way too young son Roy was studying tactics or something in Ostia, the Lycian quasi-capital and home of Eliwood’s friend Hector.




It should say that Lilina there had traveled to Pherae, not Lycia. While Eliwood’s son was visiting Hector in Ostia, Hector’s daughter was visiting Eliwood in Pherae. Maybe. An upcoming scene will imply that that’s wrong and actually Lilina traveled back to Pherae most of the way with Roy before riding ahead to arrive early. It's only chapter 1 and the writing is already full of contradictions and plot holes.




So it’s several days at the very least from Ostia to Pherae. Perhaps it was in that time that Bern actually invaded? The distances and times are pretty vague really.




Eliwood is the greatest tactician in all of Lycia. He's perhaps the first man in Elibe who grasps that castles and fortresses are meant to be hidden inside of rather than charged out of. These bandits taking advantage of the chaos of war are stymied by his brilliant stratagem.

Oh and the FE6 version of An Unexpected Caller is playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9Wn0ZzlbE

Like about half the FE6 soundtrack, there’s a much less scratchy and generally improved version in FE7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cH2X0g1L-Q

Not only FE7 and FE8 but Advance Wars 1 and 2 and many other GBA games showed that its speakers and technology were capable of much better than FE6’s soundtrack, so this game is an unfortunate lapse for a series often praised for its music.




This… is the wisest thing ever said and sums up this whole game. Damas is some kind of bandit philosopher-king.




It’s the beta version of Migal! And the people of Pherae are unceremoniously put to the sword while Eliwood sits in his castle.




Thank you, Lt. Obvious. You won’t just be demoted next time.

Merlinus here is an old family friend and advisor as well as a retired merchant.




And most of his soldiers were already sent out to prepare to engage Bern. Still, even one knight of Pherae should be able to rout this group in a quarter of a second. I surmise from this that Eleanora is dead because Eliwood would never have left her unguarded.




Apparently he’s worried the poorly armed and undisciplined bandits might actually break down the gates or get over the walls or something. Bear in mind that this is probably the first time he’s put his revolutionary idea of using a castle for defense to the test and he’s not about to trust his friend’s daughter’s life to something untested.




The bandits make the number one FE6 blunder and assume they’ve won, spreading out across an indefensible and vast area. They’d have to restart the chapter in a second if a giant enemy army just spawn-moved out of nowhere. But what are the odds of that, right?




Better luck next time, Damas. Just remember what turn we showed up and try to make it to the next wave next time.




That was Lance here riding right through the enemy.




Everyone else cares more about Eliwood of course, but Bors here is Ostian and in fact was sworn to protect Lilina.




Nor should Bors. This is our first glimpse of Roy’s character and we see that he’s prone to blaming himself for everything. Eliwood was sometimes similar, but he was better about doing the apologizing after he was already fixing the problem.




Several other people have to remind him that what’s important is saving Eliwood and Lilina, not saying their plight is his fault, before he gets back on track.



The War Room, Part 35

Strategy is how one uses limited resources to achieve goals. So before you can have a strategy, it’s essential to understand both your resources and your goals. I’ll talk about the goal first because it’s simplier: getting the maximum (SS) rank while getting the best ending.

What does that entail? Well to get the best ending I need to beat The Neverending Dream (Chapter 22) with the weapons Durandal, Armads, Forblaze, Aureola, Maltet, Miurgre, Apocalypse and the Sword of Seals acquired and not used up. And getting most of those requires unlocking and completing a secret chapter, each of which has its own requirements. The list is summed up here http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/miscellaneous/gaiden-chapters/ . And I’ll go into more detail as I get to the relevant sections of the game.
Additionally, I need to kill the final boss with Roy using the Sword of Seals. That’s… uh… that’s not very difficult. No need to worry about that part.

Getting SS ranking is a bit harder. That requires 1) playing on hard mode (done) and 2) getting an A rank (the max) in each of the 6 individual ranking categories. What are those and what does max ranking them entail?

1) Survival: 0 characters must die. Restarting the level if someone dies is just fine. Not recruiting a character and letting them die is theoretically alright, but a terrible idea for many reasons.
2) Combat. At least 40% of total fights must end with the enemy dead. Remember that stuff like the enemy attacking you when you can’t fight back (e.g. the enemy attacks one of your healers or uses long-ranged magic) counts against you.
3) Tactics. Complete the game within 630 turns (the requirement would be lower if I skipped a secret quest or got the bad ending though).
4) Funds. NOT THE SAME AS IN FE7. At the end of the game, the total value of your cash on hand + 1/2 the value of all your items must add up to 84,000. The requirement seems to have been meant to be significantly higher.
6) To get the max ranking, your characters must have 50,100 total XP gained. That’s serious XP. More than was required on HHM- and actually more than I got with my 8000 or so surplus. And I have fewer chapters to get it in. This is probably the hardest category.
5) Power. The “new” requirement, it was probably removed in FE7 for being largely redundant with XP. Basically, Power means you have to get the total level of your characters up high. Which… XP already requires. Being promoted counts as being +20 levels higher. The max ranking threshold is 1001. You get 529 for free if you recruit everyone (assuming the lower level version of Gonzalez). So that’s 472 levels to gain. Put another way, it’s 47,200 XP to gain. Which is less than the XP requirement, so you get an A for power automatically if you get an A for XP (and recruit everyone)..


I’ll go into more detail on those requirements individually- and on the resources available to complete them- in the future.


Battle Preparations & the Map:

As usual for Fire Emblem, it’s not actually possible to do battle preparations in the earliest chapters. However, for several reasons, that’s not actually as big a problem in this game as it was in 7. One is that there’s much less of a time crunch. Another is that the game just gives you better starting formations in general.


Objective: Seize the gate. Actually, it’s ALWAYS seize the gate (or throne) in this game. There are no survival chapters, no rout the enemy chapters, no anything but seizing the gate.
Secondary Objective: Build some support. This is a fairly major objective and will come up in pretty much every chapter from now on for reasons I’ll get into more later.
Secondary Objective: Visit the bottom right village for 5000 gold (Oops, just noticed the number is wrong on the map)
Reinforcements: Mwahahahaha! Let’s see how YOU like it, red team! Yeah, they don't get any.
Turn limit: 12. More than enough even if you play fairly defensively (which you should).

The battle is wholly irrelevant to the story, but this first chapter is a serious fight nonetheless. The enemy has superior numbers and stronger units, but fortunately they're spread out and stupid. Winning is all about using the terrain and formations well to control the enemy and make them fight when and where and who you want them to.

Oh and note that Damas is going to move up and step onto the gate immediately, so don’t get your hopes up.


The Characters:




The enemy fighters really give this map its character, so let’s give them a big hand. It’s fine if it’s still smaller than the one in the foreground of that picture.

Those guys are better than the level 1 fighters of HHM. This is true despite the listed base stats AND growth rates for both games being exactly the same for this class. So what gives? This guy is packing about +2 HP, 1.25 Str, 1.25 Skill, 1.5 Speed, 2 luck (enemies in this game have Luck), -.75 Def, and +.25 Res over his HHM counterpart. Now some of that is random variation of course; the fighters on this level don’t all have the same stats. But it’s clear that this game’s hard mode bonuses are bigger than the 5 levels’ worth of HHM ones from FE7 (For details on that, see the War Room Part 27: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&pagenumber=19#post442747858). I need to do further testing to figure it out, but it looks like about +8 levels worth of stats instead of +5. That hurts a lot at the beginning but that static edge will mean much less later in the game.




Oh and for the time being, these are the important stats: 18 damage, 76 accuracy, and 16 avoid. And too much speed to double (except maybe for Marcus).




Damas is less developed than most random bandits in other FEs even. You’d think an outlaw bold enough to actually attack Eliwood in his castle would have some kind of origin story or motivation other than just wanting money. Even Groznyi had more personality.

His stats look fierce at first, in particular that speed would let him double most people in this party.




But he’s wielding this, so he’s a joke. Steel axes are absolutely horrible in this game, worse than in 7 and 8 even. He can’t hit worth a darn and he’s too slow to be a threat.




One of many child soldiers in this game, Roy is 15 and looks 10. And acts 25 or so at least most of the time. Like his father before him, he’s very mature and a capable leader to begin with and doesn’t go through much development. But he’s a lot blander and we don’t ever really see him, say, losing (for more than like 5 seconds this one time). He’s certainly not completely without personality, but he’s more so than any FE protagonist but Marth. The main trait he does have is doubting his own abilities. Which is entirely appropriate for a 10 – I mean 15- year old son of the greatest knight in all of Lycia who’s been suddenly thrown into a leadership position in a world war. The stress never gets to him or anything though. And his advisors and soldiers and even foreign kings and generals pretty much never question him or doubt him. For that matter, he's inconsistent on whether or not he even doubts himself. Some characters remark that he's amazingly confident, others say he's shy and doesn't believe in himself.

To be honest, Roy’s blandness is one of the game’s biggest flaws. Ephraim was reckless and daring and irresponsible; Ike was actually acknowledged as unqualified for his post and incapable of holding his little band together in the impossible situation they were thrown into (as well as driven to avenge his father’s murder); Micaiah was secretive; Chrom kept getting beat and was kind of the opposite of Ike: his reputation as a great warrior was mostly undeserved but he was really good at inspiring loyalty. And most of them also had a much more interesting supporting cast.


Poor Roy was higher tier in Melee! He gets even more hate than Eliwood, but it’s actually somewhat justified.
Instead of being a fantastic all-rounder unit who just takes a while to blossom, Roy is usually outright bad. The difference isn’t stats directly though; their starting stats are EXACTLY the same except Eliwood has more Con. And their growths are nearly the same too (Roy trades 5% Str, Def, and Res for 15% luck). Then Roy gets better promotion gains!
But Roy doesn’t get a horse, doesn’t get lances (with the all-important javelin), promotes at least as late, and is up against tougher enemies.




And then there’s this! His version of the Rapier has many fewer uses and an important 2 less Might. That makes it the same as an iron sword! True, super effective Might is x3 instead of x2 in this game, but that’s still only 1 point better- and it’s actually not even better if facing weapon triangle disadvantage (which you usually will be). Plus nomads and troubadours don’t seem to count as cavalry so it’s not even useful against as many things in this game.

Fortunately, his super-weapon very late in the game is much better than Eliwood's Durandal, so he can be a decent unit for 20 hits. That's his only strength though.

Since he's required, you have to use him despite his badness. Grandpa Nergal is turning over in his grave.




It’s nice to see a familiarly cool face. The old Pherae family retainer and knight commander is back and this time it’s personal! He’s a pretty interesting character in the prequel, but has very little to say here. That’s unfortunate because he should really have some great stories to tell and advice to give on top of being so darned cool to begin with.
Apparently he’s become less wise with age since he mostly gives terrible advice to Roy in supports and is just full of bad ideas. Somehow he’s become the silly foil to the wise and reasonable 10- I mean 15- year old Roy.

His stats are lower, but he’s now fantastic. People went on and on about how good he supposedly was in 7 where he actually sucks, but here with his terrible Str he’s finally useful. You see, young Marcus 2-hit kills every early game enemy, meaning he siphons XP away from everyone else. Old Marcus leaves every enemy with 2-4 hit points on hard mode, making it really easy to feed kills to your weaker units.
What’s more, you actually need someone of his Jeiganish talents now whereas before most people could stand on their own almost immediately.




His gear is just what you’d hope for. With that iron sword he can double most normal enemies and reduce them to tiny HP. When you run into an enemy he can’t double (or one he can that you really, really need dead) you can use the silver lance. Either way, he can kill things on the rare occasions you need him to and is very good at weakening enemies for your other characters.




We’re told often that he’s “Roy’s milk-brother.” And that’s about it. The two of them don’t talk much outside supports and he pretty much fades into the background after one or two lines in the early scenes. His supports reveal that he’s not very confident that he’s helping Roy as an archer and that he wants to learn to be a non-useless class. But that’s about it.

Remember how Roy’s stats were mediocre? Wolt is worse in every way! No seriously. His bases are the same or worse and his growths are also the same or worse. He’s bad. He’s really bad.

And he’s an archer, always an absolutely horrible class. Archers are probably at their (still rather low) apex in this game, which would help except that the other archers are better than him. And the nomads outclass him completely. He’s the worst member of a sucky class and inferior to Roy statistically.




At least he has a vulnerary for someone whose life is actually valuable to drink. It’s important to know exactly what kind of gear you have and who has it when going into a chapter like this. Especially since the group can’t heal yet and I can’t use Battle Preparations to pass things around.




Young, untested, reckless, and fiery, Alan is very loyal to Roy and fond of his friend and fellow knight Lance. The two of them along with Marcus and Wolt and Merlinus form the inner circle of Roy’s advisers, such as it is. It might seem at first that he’s trying to get himself killed, but his unusually good support with Tate/Thite reveals he’s fighting so recklessly to impress and terrify the enemy so that the battle will be easier and safer for everyone else.

He’s one of the best units in the game because of his combination of decent stats, a good class, excellent supports, and early game availability when there are almost no other good characters. Relative to Lance he has more Str and Def but less Skill and Speed, but the differences are actually fairly small. Early on this gives Alan a relative disadvantage since Lance will be the first to get to double enemies. However, late in the game they’ll both be at or near the same speed cap, while Alan will have superior Str and Def. Later on he can still pull his weight, but he suffers from a case of paladin syndrome.




Nothing too impressive, but it will get the job done.




A somewhat more developed character, Lance is calmer and probably smarter (certainly more bookish and cerebral) than his partner and self-appointed rival Alan. He’s just as loyal and protective of Roy, but is a new addition to his knights- and a foreigner. I don’t think we know where he’s from, but we do know that he’s really thrown himself into proving his loyalty to his new realm. However, he still thinks that not being Pheraen makes him more expendable than the others. Alan tries to disabuse him of this notion.


Lance is fairly quick, though like most cavaliers his stats are pretty rounded all in all. Along with Alan, he’s one of the best units in the early game and he can stay useful till the middle, though in the long run his lower strength and defense can hurt him.




Now we’re talking! This team needs more javelins. It would be nice if he had an iron lance too, but having the javelin is more important right now.




A knight of Ostia, he’d been traveling back to Pherae with Roy and possibly Lilina (who he’s been charged with protecting). He may be aware of their budding romance and, unlike some knights in this series, considers obeying Lilina’s orders to be more important than being nearby to protect her. Consequently, he joins Roy’s group on her orders. He’s not very colorful, but he brings a sensible and everyday sort of practical wisdom to his relationships with most of the other characters.


He’s not unusable, but he’s bad. There’s not just one reason for this, but the biggest is his class. True, spectacular speed in completing maps is no longer as necessary as it was in my previous LP, but it’s still important to be able to get around a changing battlefield and stay in good formations. Bors’s terrible movement makes that hard.

He’s also locked to lances, which aren’t a bad weapon overall but are bad now when nearly every enemy has an axe.

Further, knights have exactly one job and that is to tank. Bors cannot do that one job. His Def base is only pretty good and his Def growth is unimpressive. What’s more, he has atrocious Res and terrible base speed (though his speed growth is good).

The upshot right now is that while everyone (including Bors) dies in 2 rounds if hit, everyone except Bors has a good chance of dodging. This makes him the squishiest, rather than the tankiest, member of the team.

And he can’t hit. And he can’t get supports with anyone here in the early group.

So what do you do with a knight who can’t take hits? Well his damage isn’t very good either and his skill is unimpressive. If you can manage to level him, his good growths and great promotion bonuses will gradually submerge his bad bases and make him a fairly respectable unit-but not strong enough.
The one thing he has going for him is that the other knights are 1) not here right now and 2) just about as bad.

I didn’t use Oswin and Oswin was pretty much the best knight in any FE relative to his game, so I’m not using the lousy Bors more than I have to.




Another vulnerary I guess. No javelin unfortunately.


Playing Through:




Luckily, Marcus can double this fighter so I don’t need to break out the silver lance to weaken him instead.




I don’t like moving next to that Forest, but the chance of getting the kill from 1 space down with the javelin is too low and wouldn’t let me wall for Wolt either.




If both enemies go for Lance and both hit, they can actually kill him, though the probability isn’t very high. But if I move Roy in here, the southern fighter will probably be lured to attack him instead.




On the enemy turn, Damas comments about the usefulness of gates and moves onto this one.




Fair enough. I knew I was going to wind up with one of these guys on the forest when I made that move last time and that’s going to be a problem, but I believe it was still worthwhile.




Roy can’t even 2-hit kill (and doesn’t double) an enemy that Alan weakened. But he did his job of being bait so that it was less likely the more important Lance would die/be injured.




A significant enemy force is coming and that archer is trouble. It’s easy to wall out a bunch of fighters so that each of my team members can be hit at most once. But then the archer can shoot whoever ends up most injured, so it’ll be hard to not lose someone.




It’s time to break out my damage reduction techniques, as outlined in the War Room, part 18 (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&pagenumber=8#post442048947) . I think this one calls for numbers 4 and 5: I’m going to try to kill most of them and use formations to prevent anyone from getting swarmed and killed by the remainder.

Bors trades with Lance to get this javelin. It will help if it hits, but isn’t necessary. He can’t be allowed to attack with an iron lance, or the counterattacks will leave him nearly dead.




And Marcus makes a perhaps unexpectedly aggressive move here. I want this archer dead fast and I also want Marcus exposed to enemy fire so that lots of guys will be injured by his counters.




Wolt finishes the archer. Notice that he would lose a straight solo fight with this level 1 archer and in fact it’s not even close. Anyway, Wolt is bad but he gets more XP from kills than Marcus does and I’m going to need all the XP I can get. Plus that archer had to die.




Alan weakens this one and Lance finishes it, forming a short wall with Marcus that leaves Marcus in the exposed position the enemy will attack most.




Roy waits here where only one person can attack him. This position ensures the woods fighter will move out of the forest so I can actually kill him and it also keeps Roy alive. That attacking Wolt is an option for one fighter should keep Bors safe.




Wolt did his job as bait.




Roy, unfortunately, was hit by the other fighter but it was bound to happen eventually.




So here’s the turn 3 setup. It looks bad, but most of those enemies are actually really injured, so the whole group is about to melt.




Precise order is going to matter and I need someone else attacking from Lance’s former spot, so he finishes this guy.




The first level of the game is pretty good! The HP is actually a surprisingly important part of that. 1-2 points of HP right now will take him from getting 2-hit killed to 3-hit killed.




This fighter here is REALLY hard to deal with because he has both too much speed and too much def. That’s why I needed Marcus to take Lance’s spot.




Looks risky, but it isn’t. If Bors hits, great, that will let Alan or Wolt or someone else use their turn more productively. If not, I can still keep him safe.




It worked! Now I don’t have to let Wolt get a kill.



Roy does instead. And that’s the turn.




Wolt is good for weakening people for Roy but that’s about it.




The Rapier is expensive and I don’t want to overuse it, so Roy trades for an iron sword to kill this guy with.




Then he immediately trades back on Lance’s move.




And he and Alan rescue-drop Roy along. Now Alan is on a forest with a sword and is the only possible target for that fighter. Marcus will move in to lure the other enemies on the left.




Now this is how I want the fights to look!




So Lance is gaining Str and Alan is getting Speed. Not sure whether that unusualness is good or bad overall.




The "use Marcus to lure the enemy" plan worked too well since several enemies that couldn’t actually hit him started running over too. Fortunately, this ruined village slows movement much like a forest would (but with no defensive bonuses).




Alright, I want to save another rapier use so I’m going to take a big risk here. Alan gives Roy his iron sword and then prepares to kill this fighter with his iron lance. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, I’m going to have to dedicate someone else’s turn to finishing this guy.




It worked! Now Marcus + the ruins + Lance will be able to keep Roy safe in what looks like a dangerous situation.




That’s Roy!




Bors can’t keep up and wasn’t useful to begin with. He gives Lance his stuff.




And at the start of next turn, he begins returning for the village.




Alright, things are actually getting tricky because those ruins have me pinned down. This guy will take some time to kill, so I need to get started on it.




But not right now. I want to weaken this archer then have Lance or Alan finish him after we kill the other fighter.




Oh. Alright. I dislike how critical hits can ruin plans like that.




Well in that case I can take it a bit easier here.




Got to feed kills to Roy while I can.




And Alan gets back his iron sword.




Lance finally gets hit. Oh and note that they used the same generic field/plain background for fights across this whole battlefield. FE7 is generally much better about having cool fight backgrounds that actually match the setting of the battle.




Why would a bunch of random thugs be able to take on knights? It’s crazy that they managed to do this well. Anyway, the map is pretty much over now, not much left to do but visit houses and villages.




Uh… maybe I’ll skip the other houses.




The true enemy here isn’t Damas, it’s the gate terrain. They aren’t as bad as thrones in this game, but they still give fearsome Def bonuses.




So Marcus keeps the heat on Damas while everyone else moves into support-building formation. You’ll notice, actually, that I’ve been keeping Alan and Lance next to each other most of the time anyway.




Finally, Alan goes for the finishing blow, with Lance ready to pull him out if he misses.




Nice! Alan is looking good.




The villagers give us 5,000 gold. People who complain about this game’s supposed difficulty should think about how fast it throws money at us. That makes 10,000 total gold on chapter 1. Compare this to Hector’s story. There we get 0 gold for the first 4 chapters. At best there’s a non-trivial to acquire red gem which can be sold (at a funds loss) for 2500. Then on 13x, a secret chapter, there’s 3000. And then pretty much no more till Kinship’s Bond 12 chapters later (and even then you have to compete with a thief to get it). This game has stronger enemies, but it’s actually easier in many other ways.




I’m just waiting turn after turn to build support. I could have seized the throne and won on turn 6 or something or maybe earlier if I’d hurried, but the time limit is huge and I’m willing to exceed it to get the significant support stat bonuses early.
So Bors visits other houses for generic early game advice.




This is the only villager who’s really in-character.




On turn 19, Lance and Alan get unlock their C support. That’s 7 turns into debt, but I’m not too worried about it. The earliest this conversation could possibly have been unlocked is turn 16, but there were 3 turns during the battle when they couldn’t be placed next to each other.




So they have their C support conversation which is just about their generic cavalier rivalry.




Roy conquers his own castle for a turn 19 win.




Lilina and Eliwood have been rescued.




Eliwood is still recovering from dysentery, so he puts Roy in charge.




Guess it’s time to take on Bern. The story really begins here.




Lilina needs to learn that it’s often better to ask forgiveness than seek permission.




Sure enough, Eliwood sends her back to Ostia to reign in her father’s stead while Hector marshalls the Lycian alliance army.




Afterall, the people will be feeling "uptight." Probably "anxious" would have been a better word, but that’s one of my favorite lines of this translation.




Quite an honor there!




Lilina can’t go with Roy but sends Bors to protect him. I’m sure she meant well.


And that’s a wrap! I have to say, after max ranking FE7 it feels REALLY weird to blitz through the chapter and then just stop and wait for more than 10 turns to build supports. I keep wanting to restart and see if I can beat it in 5 turns or something instead. But the time limits are pretty much a non-issue in this game and I should take advantage of that.


Total Restarts: 0. It’s an easy chapter.
Turn Surplus: -7 (It could totally be +7 or something instead. So weird)
Things I Regret Missing: No regrets!