Part 28: Fall of Mediuth, Part 2

The best strategy for this chapter is basically to blitz the throne room - an especially easy task to accomplish when your entire team has 12 Movement and is nearly invincible. Otherwise you risk getting bogged down in the endless reinforcements, and without any way to replenish weapons eventually the player will lose a battle of endurance.


Turn 1:

Player Phase Map Music - Final Map

The first 24 chapters of the game use the exact same music, but the last chapter mixes things up with some more 'serious' tunes. This one plays on the map during the player phase.



Julian performs his last Thiefly duty, allowing Marth to get things started by taking out the Paladin. The Falchion isn't strong enough to one-round kill most enemies here, but it's enough for this Paladin - and since it grants melee-immunity to Marth (except against Mamkutes, for obvious reasons) it's handy for avoiding counter-attacks.



The B-team down here has a few more targets to handle. Hardin wanders over to relieve Rena of the Shooter, while Roger takes out the Priest. The Shooter gets to live, though, having high enough HP and Defense to withstand our attacks barring a lucky critical. The Priest actually drops a Door Key here, just in case you need help opening the door we already unlocked.



Team Alpha-North has only one way to go with three enemies in their path. Chiki takes out the Mamkute, Est kills off the Hero, and Navarre uses the Devil Sword to make sure the Shooter goes down. I panic a little bit when I remember after the fact that the Hero has a Dragon Killer, but Est's Defense is so high that it still only does 10 damage to her. As a reward, Est takes the Dragon Killer for herself.



Last is the D-team, because B-team just wasn't insulting enough. Daros leads the way by using the Devil Axe on the General, while Gordon easily handles the Dragon Knight and Barts barely manages the Priest. Jake slowly crawls forward, headed for the Storage.



Dammit Daros, you are literally a perfect unit and you're still missing!! Gordon gets a Thunder Sword off the Dragon Knight and immediately throws it in the trash.



And there's where we stand at the end of the player phase.

Enemy Phase Map Music - Final Map

The enemy phase also gets a more high-tempo theme for the final chapter.





We suffer some scratches despite maxed-out defenses, but the HP bars are still plenty full.


Turn 2:



The outer ranks of enemies have helpfully closed with us.



Chiki and Navarre start things off. Navarre takes his counterpart's Silver Sword and dumps it back into Storage.



Est actually gets a bit lucky here, as even with the Devil Sword she would've left the General at 2 HP without the critical. Wolf needs no such help with a mere Paladin.



Roger makes short work of another Paladin, and claims a Dragon Sword from its corpse. Hardin, meanwhile, finishes off the pesky Shooter that he'd attacked last turn.



Jake is close enough to this General to get in on the action with style.



End of the player phase of the second turn, and all we have left is the throne room.



On the enemy phase, Linda successfully baits one of the Snipers into killing himself.


Turn 3:



Jake made it out just in time, as at the start of the third turn the chambers where our two northern forces were located are sealed off.



Marth moves into the throne room and starts chipping away at Mediuth's bodyguard.



Everyone is now within sight of the throne room (except Jake, of course).



Sniper does 2 damage to Marth, no one else bothers to do anything. Practically speaking, it's all over.


Turn 4:



This time it's Daros's turn to get in some licks on the last Demon Mamkute.



Daros gets just enough done for Wolf to swoop in and get the kill. Notice how durable these enemies are even with our max-Power units wielding the strongest weapons.



Roger and Julian make short work of the Clerics. Mediuth is hard enough without the extra healing.



Took a chance hoping for a lucky crit here but didn't get it. The Sniper gets to live another turn.



Fortunately Mediuth, like most bosses, won't actually move from his throne, so we're safe enough here.



The Sniper whiffs on his last remote chance to affect the outcome of this battle.


Turn 5:



Mediuth is immune to ranged attacks, so only a direct assault is going to work. Moreover, his position on the throne not only prevents more than one attacker at a time, but heals him up at the start of each enemy phase. Surviving Mediuth's own 30 Attack each turn is pretty trivial for our units but would normally be rather difficult. Being able to out-heal Mediuth's damage turns this fight into pretty much a guaranteed win, it's just a matter of how many turns it takes.

A fast enough unit with the Devil Axe or the Gradius could manage 20 damage in one turn between attacking on the player phase and countering on the enemy phase, eventually taking down Mediuth that way in about four turns without any crits. If you didn't get the Falchion, this is really your only option since Mediuth is also immune to magic. Marth can dish out 12 damage per turn with the 18-Might Miracle, but the throne will heal away most of that and it'll run out of uses before Mediuth runs out of HP (and since it's a unique weapon, it can't be repaired, either). The only other weapons that can even damage Mediuth are a Devil Sword (8 damage per turn, basically just hoping for crits) and Banutu's Fire Dragonstone (4 damage per turn; need multiple crits per turn to even stay ahead of Mediuth's healing).

Combat Music - Final Battle

Fighting Mediuth gives a new combat tune to mark the special occasion.



Daros is up first. Mediuth looks like a normal Mamkute at first, but his transformation starts off as a pile of rocks.



A rocky hand reaches out from the earth.



And the Dark Dragon himself emerges.



Daros is off to a good start.



He gets bathed in some kind of earth-fire for his trouble, but shrugs it off.



Daros's second attack completes successfully, leaving Mediuth at 25/45 HP.



Rena gives Daros a dose of Recover to prepare him for the enemy phase.



Mediuth scolds Daros for daring to attack him.



Daros tanking like a champ.



And Mediuth is down another 10 HP. He healed only 5 HP from the throne, so sits at 20/45 HP total now.



The Earth Orb is a bit of a secret weapon here. It does a semi-random amount of damage to every enemy on the map, and despite being an Earth Dragon that's immune to ranged attacks, Mediuth is still vulnerable to it.



The screen shakes for several seconds, and Mediuth loses another 10 HP.



Daros has two shots left, better make them count. (Though the Hammerne can actually repair this one at least.)



The first hit lands, and Daros even dodges the counter-attack by standing still and letting it bounce off his thick skull.



The final attack is launched....



And Mediuth falls. To Daros.



The screen actually shakes here as Mediuth roars his defiance before slowly fading away in pixellated form.



Mediuth has a death quote from across the void.



I think there's an implicit assumption that Marth is the one getting the kill here.



There seems to be an 'as' missing there.

Remember.... As long as there is light, there will always be darkness....

And with that, the final chapter is complete. But what would have happened if we had Marth attack instead?



Not much is different, really.



Marth does more damage, obviously, and is also a bit more dodgy due to the Falchion being much lighter than the Devil Axe.



Mediuth loses most of his HP in the first round of attacks, but that doesn't stop him from attacking Marth himself on the enemy phase.



Mediuth's aggression allows Marth to defeat the Dark Dragon in a single turn (two rounds, four attacks).

The final conversations are all the same from there.

With the defeat of Mediuth, the chapter is immediately complete.









Next time: The End