Part 4: Sephyz

FIRE EMBLEM DIFFERENT DIMENSION OSTIAN PRINCESS
Chapter 3: Sephyz



You might think this chapter'd be pretty hard to fuck up, right? Hate to say it, but you're pretty much right. Except for a couple of things. This is FIRE EMBLEM DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OSTIAN PRINCESS after all.



I've always really liked the spritework in the GBA Fire Emblems. For being on a gameboy advance, they manage to be really evocative and detailed. The maps, especially.



Yeah, it's pretty well-sprited. Really gets across the 'desolate town' feel.



... You know, doing a find/replace and putting stupid names in place of actual ones isn't funny. If you're gonna do a comedy hack, do a comedy hack, don't just randomly decide that the bandits need to be named the GreatAss bandits.



Don't you defend him, poorly recolored Fiora! Actually, wait, why is the Florina replacement a Fiora recolor to begin with?



Oh, and these guys break the fourth wall and constantly reference their 'Fire Emblem Party.' It's not nearly as funny as it sounds, and it sounds about as funny as hematospermia.



No, seriously, I hate to keep ragging on this guy's comedy chops, since I'm not exactly a master of timing myself, but these aren't even jokes. He just shoehorned in random words into the middle of dialogue. Running the game's script through gizoogle would be wittier.



Would probably make more sense, too.



Certainly wouldn't have as many obvious gaping plot holes. Wo Dao are Sacaen weapons, not Illian. I know this because every swordmaster in both FE6 and FE7 is Sacaen, and Wo Dao can only be used by myrmidons/swordmasters. And Lyn. Who's also Sacaen.



And... kinda late on this one, but what the hell kind of name is Sephyz?



Wait what.



Did she really-



Jesus. I feel bad for the bandits here, actually. In the original game it was Florina accidentally falling when she was flying and landing on one of them, which probably hurt but was also completely accidental. As opposed to cutting a dude.



I mean, they *technically* want to kidnap her, and we'll be killing all of them anyway, but- wait, what the hell happened to this line of dialogue?



She cut them with a katana!



Also 'Fire Emblem party' is the clunkiest way of making this joke possible.



See?



Also, I'm Mig now, not Endorph, because I had to restart the game for Reasons and I forgot to set up the tactician properly. Oh well. All the levels/stats are exactly the same, don't worry. Speaking of stats...



Jesus, lady, those sure are lopsided. Also, you probably have Florina's growths because everyone else has their original character's growths. Meaning, you have a 40% strength growth. Not terrible, but when strength is your giant glaring weakness...



Oh, but her two crit weapons can make up for that. Mig64 sure loves giving me sword units with ridiculous inventories.



Anyway, in direct defiance of Lilian, I hand the Mani Katti over to Zack. It's one of the lightest weapons in the game, so it'll help make up for his negaverse CON.



Also, for some reason, there's a promoted enemy on this map. Sure, okay. She's a pretty big threat, actually, despite her eh stats. Mostly because she can one-round Axel or Lilian.



So Sephyz rescues Axel.



And Zack moves forward to use his Light Brand. Here we can start to see his glaring flaw come and bite him on the ass. At least, it would be biting him on the ass, if he wasn't harder than steel.



You know? I don't mind this level. All I want from him is speed, at this point.



Anyway, Sephyz takes the Light Brand off Zack's hands...



And takes out the sniper.



Her battle sprite is probably the least terrible of the ones we've seen so far. No, don't ask me why she has a Blade Lord battle sprite instead of a Myrmidon's. I don't know.



Lilian, meanwhile, recruits our Wil replacement, MARF SANTANGELO.



Marf... okay, no, I refuse to call him Marf. Mr. Santangelo here is a reasonable level, with reasonable stats for his level and class, and nothing obviously wrong with him. Of course, there's probably some sort of glitch resulting from the fact that he's a renamed version of Eliwood's Lord class, but for now? He's remarkably sane, really.



He also has an A support with someone named Zanatta. Keep this in mind, going forward.



To welcome himself to the party, Santangelo takes Axel off Sephyz's hands and sets him down.



The enemies all move forward, since none of them are in range, and on our next turn Santangelo gets welcomed to the party. IN BLOOD.



And animation smears.



We then wind up in a formation like this.



Next turn, things look like this. Note the village I have a cursor over: normally, you're supposed to fly Florina over the wall and the mountain to get to it before the bandits destroy it. Specifically, the Brigands: only Brigands can destroy villages. Well, them and pirates. That said, the pirates seem to be ignoring it, so if we pick those guys off...



Like so.



It's fun times.



... Wait, hold on, wait, fighters can destroy villages now? This is a problem because that village is the only source of gold for quite a little bit in Lyn's story. Whoops. Thanks, FIRE EMBLEM DIFFERENT DIMENSION OSTIAN PRINCESS.



Anyway, here's a better shot of Santangelo. The enemies here aren't really threatening in the least, except to our squishy mages.



Even Santangelo's 7 defense is barely taking any damage.



Also, I take the Earth Seal off Sephyz, only to discover Zack can't use it. Which is weird, since he has unpromoted caps, so you'd think he'd be able to promote...



We'll come back to that, but for now, we have Archers to kill.



And mediocre levels to get. Speed, man, speed.



Anyway, there's not exactly many enemies left...



So Axel wanders over to the armory. We don't have any gold, but maybe we can pawn these spare Iron Axes.



wait what



Heaven seals are used to promote the three main characters in FE7. You only get two, since you only have two lords that need to be promoted (Eliwood or Hector, depending on what story you're playing, get auto-promoted late in the game.) I have no idea why these are being sold here, or why they're 0 gold...



But I buy one for kicks.



Nope. Uh-oh. This means Zack is gonna ram his level cap, and fast.



And- wait what



... Huh. Supports aren't supposed to be accessible in Lyn's mode, and yet here we are. If I had to guess, I think Santangelo already having an A support breaks the game's 'lock' on it.



'Actually, you look exactly like Eliwood if he were a brunette and had a weirdly colored cape.' 'I get that a lot.'



Also, why are you giving out orders, Lilian? Yeah, don't get your hopes up - this is just Lyn and Wil's support conversation with a find/replace job, and all references to Caelin pried out of it. So it lasts about ten lines, since half the support is about Wil being a Caelin knight.



Yep, it actually applies mechanically. Well, that'll be helpful for them both.



As demonstrated here.



I tried to get some other supports going, but nothing doing, which leads me to suspect they're only working for Santangelo and Santangelo alone.



Anyway, Sephyz kills a man.



And gets a shitty level out of it. You only need one stat, Strength, and you basically got every stat BUT that. C'mon, girl.



Yes, you, a grown woman, really endangered yourself by following around the 10-year-old girl.



Mig64's mastery of the english language knows no limits.



This bit is unedited, save for the names, but I'm putting it in because it's one of my favorite little dialogue moments in the game - when I first played this, nearly ten years ago, this is what really sold me on the game. No, I'm serious.



It's just really cute. Sain (replaced by Axel here) is desperate to have a cute girl along, makes up some random nonsense, includes Wil (replaced by Santangelo) for no reason, and Wil responds with...



wait hold on no youre ruining everything



More like Lilian's Losers.



Oh, I think I saw that movie. My favorite scene is where the girl-

Next Time: Executioner's Calling