The Let's Play Archive

Fire Emblem: Binding Blade

by Melth

Part 40: Final Chapter



Sounds cool but… what does this title have to do with the chapter? You don’t really go beyond any darkness.

This is an infamously lame and trivially easy final chapter gameplay wise, but they really did a solid job on the dialog. This chapter actually has some heart to it, on the same level that the good fire emblems have all the time.


Chapter Summary:




They meet at last. Idoun’s theme plays and is really appropriate and good for this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKpQKZAZ2m4




This line kind of raises an interesting question or two. It implies that she’s capable of abstract thought and understanding other people’s motives, which is not what it sounded like when people talked about her previously.










Roy seems to notice that too and tries to reason with her.










A great line. It reminds me of what Bramimond said about Eliwood, which was one of my favorite parts of 7. Unlike Bramimond, she isn’t swayed by the memory.

Come to think of it, I wonder if the whole “soul destroyed” thing is the same as what happened to dark magic users like Nergal, Bramimond, and Canas’s brothers. That’s an interesting idea.







I regard this as probably the best line in the whole game. It’s really quite evocative.







Removing her hood might be a bit more dramatic if we hadn’t seen her hoodless once or twice before.










Interestingly, she doesn’t seem to be committed to killing all humans even though that’s what Zephiel said he wanted. She’s apparently quite alright with letting us, a bunch of humans, leave.




And she’s transformed. I guess that concludes negotiations.




And now every character gets their start of battle line.




Aw.




This is of course a reference to his recruitment conversation, though it doesn’t actually make that much sense.




Well that’s a lame line. They should have just gone with one of his "... ..."s










These lines are really just not that good in general.







… what?







There we go!




They really make sure you definitely know what you need to do to get the best ending. They should have at least given some kind of clue that you should have got all the legendary weapons if you got the bad ending.


Battle Preparations & the Map:



Secondary Objectives: Steal some elixirs (all mamkutes have them)
Reinforcements: 1 mamkute/turn spawns from a random marked wall spot until the end of time- but only as long as there are not 2 mamkutes on the field already.
Turn Limit: 10. Is it even possible to take this long?

Well at long last it’s a reasonably-sized map! I don’t think we’ve seen one of those since maybe… FE7?

And this is the one, the ONLY map in the game where you don’t need to seize a throne to win!

Nothing interesting here other than that, really. If your Roy is not horrible, it’s trivial to win on turn 1. All you need is 16 str. My Roy does not have 16 Str because he’s far below average. 20 speed would also do it. My Roy does not have 20 speed. So I need to use Bolting or the like to make it possible, but it’s still incredibly easy. And I’m ready. I had a contingency plan in place in case Roy didn’t gain any more Str.

There’s basically no opposition. The mamkutes are unusually strong, but they’re not numerous. 1 per turn will spawn out of one of the marked sections of wall at random, but only up to there being 2 mamkutes on the field, so you can never be overwhelmed or anything.



Units Allowed: The exact same ones as last time.

Remember what I said last chapter: your formation for this time is determined by the order of your people in the unit list on the last chapter, you can’t change it now. That’s pretty annoying. You also can’t re-equip or anything, so nothing has changed.

Anyway, my order was chosen last time so that Oujay and Ray can both walk up and kill one of the mamkutes, Lilina can step in and bolting if needed, Lalum can boost Roy up to hit Idoun on turn 1, and… that’s about it. No one else matters.


The Characters:




All the mamkutes on this chapter are very strong. But still not much threat.




Kind of… heavy-handed. I must object to her being called “tragic” though. I mean, her story as we see it is kind of sad, but it’s not in any way a tragedy. Maybe if we knew more about her story or something.




Idoun is, honestly, more a plot device than a character. That’s unfortunate, because she had the potential to be quite interesting. I also think the game would have benefited a lot from making finding out her whole story difficult- like Nergal’s. I think it would be nice if you got the “good” ending automatically but had to find some sidequests revealing her background to get the true ending.


Anyway, her stats are pretty solid. Notably, the legendary weapons are NOT super-effective against her. And there’s no Luna in this game. That means even, say Gonzalez can hit for only 18 damage with Armads (and she dodges decently). Lilina could hit for I think 23 with Forblaze, so that’s your best bet I suppose. A really lucky Ray might be able to manage 31 with Apocalypse actually, but he’s not realistically capping his Mag. Anyway, the point is that she’s really hard to kill… except with Roy and Fa. The Sword of Seals and Divine Stone are supereffective. This means that Roy does 24 + Str damage per hit. If he has 16 Str, he’ll kill her in 2 shots. And if he has that and 20 speed, both easily attainable, he’ll one-round kill her.




… don't get too flowery with the description. It’s true though. 20 Might and 100 hit and some crit too, that’s pretty solid. Only 1 range, but she DOES move.




As you can see, my Roy is not strong enough to 2-hit kill. He'll leave her with 1 HP.


Playing Through:




Oujay easily kills the left mamkute and gets a decent level.

Now as it turns out, my Ray CAN’T beat the right mamkute. He’s too slow by 1 point to double. So there’s actually no way for me to kill it while winning in 1 turn. Oh well, there’s no way I could have known how much faster than normal that mamkute would be in advance and there’s nothing I can do about it now.




One last thing to do. Clarine takes the Hammerne and hands the Warp to Lilina.




And fixes the Warp up. As I mentioned a long time ago- back in the war room part 32 in FE7 (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&pagenumber=26#post444276818)- you can generate a pretty good boost to your Funds score by using the Hammerne on the right stuff. I used that Warp staff 13 times for a cost of 1800. Not bad.




So Lalum dances for Roy and he runs to attack.




Terrible sprite and animation, great theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCW7kazmmj4



Lilina helps out.




End turn…




A dragon spawns and Idoun attacks first, of course.




The animations are just… awful. This is her tail smack attack, she actually has several different ones. All have the exact same effect.




It’s dragon-slaying time!




No cool death animation or anything.




Just a pretty good death line.




And she’s a green unit now.




… I hate this cliché. It doesn’t even serve any kind of purpose here, they just felt it was obligatory to have a dungeon collapse after a boss was killed.







And he escaped. And the temple is still totally intact. So… why did they even bother with saying it was collapsing? It affects absolutely nothing and isn’t even dramatic since he’s safe and sound 2 seconds later.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOB389Ma-0c&list=PLwvweEKnS3AHZ4pYIYqzKdBKGFxnZNsNQ&index=57

As is traditional, a main theme reprise plays during part of the end. I always love that.




A nonsensical explanation of the pointless collapse.




… I guess?




I guess he wouldn’t know? He never did see her. And he didn’t hear Roy talk about trying to save her. I’m curious what happens if you stupidly bring him to the battle.




I have NO idea what he asks. There’s just a scene break.


Total Restarts: 16 (None since chapter 17!)
Turn Surplus: +103 (Awesome)
Things I Regret Missing: A couple of uses of Marcus’s silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill, two Chapter 12 fighters I couldn’t kill since I needed supports built elsewhere, a pirate and a wyvern rider on 14x who I didn’t have time to go after, 2 enemies in a room I didn’t have time to kill on chapter 20x, this one lazy mercenary on chapter 21x, Zephiel’s steal-only Hero Crest, a bunch of stealable elixirs on chapter 24, the right mamkute on chapter 25
Legendary Weapon Scoreboard: Durandal slew Ohtz using Oujay on chapter 14x, turn 2; and the top left mamkute using Oujay on chapter 16, turn 9; and Arcard using Oujay on chapter 17, turn 16; and a bottom left paladin using Oujay on chapter 21, turn 7; and a bottom left wyvern rider using Oujay on chapter 21, turn 9; and the first throne mamkute using Oujay on chapter 2, turn 2; and the 5th platform reinforcement mamkute using Oujay on chapter 24, turn 14; and the left mamkute using Oujay on chapter 25, turn 1. Armads slew Teck using Gonzalez on chapter 20x, turn 10; and a middle right wyvern using Gonzales on chapter 23, turn 2; and the left platform 2 mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 3; and the right platform 2 mamkute using Gonzales on chapter 24, turn 3; and the platform 2 throne mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 4; and the left platform 3 mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 5; and the right platform 4 mamkute using Gonzales on chapter 24, turn 5; and the 5th platform throne mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 10; and the final platform bridge guard mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 13; and the left final platform mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 14; and the right final platform mamkute using Gonzalez on chapter 24, turn 14. Forblaze slew the top right mamkute using Lugh on chapter 16, turn 6; and the left section hero using Lugh on chapter 20, turn 2; and the purge bishop using Lugh on chapter 20, turn 5; and one of Brenya’s snipers using Lugh on chapter 23, turn 8; and the last staff druid using Hugh on chapter 23, turn 8. Maltet slew a middle area wyvern rider using Miledy on chapter 21, turn 2; and a middle area wyvern lord using Miledy on chapter 21, turn 2; and the right mamkute using Miledy on chapter 21, turn 10; and the middle right sniper using Tate on chapter 21x, turn 3; and the silence druid using Tate on chapter 21x, turn 7; and Pereth using Tate on chapter 21x, turn 14; and the 3rd platform bridge guard mamkute using Alan on chapter 24, turn 5; and the 3rd platform throne mamkute using Alan on chapter 24, turn 6; and Yahn using Alan on chapter 24, turn 15. Miurgre slew the throne room mamkute using Shin on chapter 22, turn 15; and the left platform 4 mamkute using Shin on chapter 24, turn 7; and the platform 4 throne mamkute using Shin on chapter 24, turn 8; and the left platform 5 mamkute using Shin on chapter 24, turn 10; and the 6th platform throne mamkute using Shin on chapter 24, turn 12. Apocalypse slew the top left general using Ray on chapter 22, turn 8; and a top rightish wyvern rider using Ray on chapter 23, turn 3; and the 5th platform bridge guard using Ray on chapter 24, turn 9. The Sword of Seals slew the right area Sniper using Roy on chapter 22, turn 2; and the top right Berserker using Roy on chapter 22, turn 6; and a top middlish druid using Roy on chapter 22, turn 7; and the right throne room mamkute using Roy on chapter 22, turn 15; and a throne room sniper reinforcement using Roy on chapter 22, turn 16; and Zephiel using Roy on chapter 22, turn 17; and the middle right mamkute using Roy on chapter 23, turn 2; and a top rightish wyvern using Roy on chapter 23, turn 3; and the Red Gem mamkute using Roy on chapter 23, turn 4; and the final mamkute using Roy on chapter 23, turn 8; and a platform 1 mamkute using Roy on chapter 24, turn 1; and the right platform 5 mamkute using Roy on chapter 24, turn 10; and Idoun using Roy on chapter 25, turn 1.