Part 5: The Sucker

And then she took the-



Wait, hold on, it's a new map!

... Wait, hold on, no it isn't! This is just Talons Alight! Why would you take Chapter 15's map and put it in place of chapter 4's? I don't... will Talons Alight have its map replaced by In Occupation's Shadow (the usual chapter 4), or will we play Talons Alight twice?



- Mig64, before uploading his hack



Okay, we've confirmed two things here.

1) Mig64's grasp of the English language is... loose. Towns go extinct?
2) This definitely puts us after FE7. I think. But wait, Caelin didn't get destroyed, it just became part of Ostia... all the towns and cities of Caelin would still exist. They'd just be Ostian territory. I mean, when Alaska became part of the United States, Alaska didn't become a rundown hellhole, did it?



Ah, fuck it, trying to sort out this timeline is giving me a headache.


- Mig64, upon playtesting his hack



For instance. Since the map is Talons Alight, but the units are still scripted to run around in positions that make sense for In Occupation's Shadow, the characters run around in circles, go into walls, pause stock-still mid-animation, then just sort of jankily slide over to some random position. It's a bit like playing Team Fortress 2 on a Brazilian server.



Also, question. Mig replaced every character so far, but kept Natalie? Why?



Ah, well. Natalie's just a one-off character, I can understand not replacing her. Also, MUNDO!



This dude's sprite is the same as always, but his chin and sunken-in cheeks have always kinda freaked me out.



Also, the enemies have the same scripting problem that our allies had. It's kind of hilarious to watch, really.



Also, you know what? I'll give Mig64 props. This dude's just a recolor of the king of Bern, who only shows up in a couple of scenes and who you never fight. He sparks a pretty major subplot, and creates the villain of FE6 inadvertently, but he's not a major character who you see constantly. If you're stuck with recoloring sprites due to being kind of bad at sprite manipulation, recoloring his sprite for a party member isn't a bad idea. Good job, Mig64.



Nevermind. What?



Okay, no, good job, Mig64. "Pick your Killer Axe... and kill!" is the greatest sentence I've ever read. I'm going to talk to everyone I know that way from now on. "Pick your lawnmower... and mow!" "Pick your bass guitar... and bass!" It'll be great.



Pick your rom... and hack!



Okay, Mig64, I want you to look at our party's positions. Look at them. You do not get to 'bla bla bla' the game's actual dialogue when 80% of our party is stuck in a wall.



Oh wait, nevermind, it's sorted itself out. Sort of.



Before we address the problem of Santangelo being in noclip mode, let's look at the boss and our new recruit. First, Carjiga. He sucks, even though he inexplicably promoted and gained 8 levels.



Next, Mundo, our Dorcas replacement. He also sucks. If Zack hadn't destroyed reality in his quest to become useful, he'd be some much needed meat for our team, but as it stands he's just kinda filler. At least we can trust him not to die, unless magic gets involved.



... Also, Natalie became a transporter. For. Uh. Some reason. Hey, at least we can shuffle our inventories around for this map, I... guess...? Let's just pretend this is normal.



Luckily for Santangelo, the game has failsafes for this. I know it's the game and not Mig64 because you can see this in Night of Farewells, when the bridges appear and disappear. If you wind up on water, with terrain right next to you, you can walk out of the water and onto the terrain.



Anyway, Santangelo moves forward and. Wait, why can't the thief strike back?



He has a... wait.



... He doesn't have the sword rank to wield his sword. You know what? Sure. Okay.



While Santangelo is mocking that thief's poor judgment, Zack goes over and oneshots an Archer.



He gets an eh level out of it. How many times do I have to say 'speed' before you get it?



Back on the right, Axel puts that thief out of his weaponless misery.



Yep, Natalie's functioning as a transporter. It's still game over if she dies on this map, though.



That confirmed, Sephyz Brands herself a Brigand.



I don't know why, but Sephyz is barely getting any EXP from killing generic enemies. It's kind of weird.



... Also, we can select Natalie. She can't move, but we have to tell her to wait before we can end our turns, since, again, no end turn command. I don't even have it in me to be surprised at this shit anymore. You couldn't select Merlinus, the transporter in FE7, until he was upgraded to have a wagon. Because then you could actually move him, instead of just pointlessly telling him to wait. Turns also auto-ended even if you didn't give him an order, regardless of whether or not he had his wagon.



It looks kind of like the Mercenary is kneeing the MISS!



Seriously though, the enemies are still barely any threat to most of our frontliners. Santangelo has lowish defense and only decent speed, and he's still laughing off the brigands here.



Some strength or defense would be nice, but I'll take it.



Sephyz turns her back on this nonsense.



And this Knight is really dedicated to busting down this wall.



Lilian moves closer, since we want her to recruit Mundo...



Axel refreshes her.



So she moves even closer and takes out a bandit. Lilian's been kind of lagging behind in levels, since she's so squishy. I don't wanna put her at risk, and our frontliners certainly don't need help killing people.



Listen to me, Lilian. Darling. Lili-baby. These levels are not helping your case.



Shit, that's a lot of bandits near Lilian. Also the boss. The boss is there too.



Well, the map'll be over if we kill the boss, and I don't wanna hang around here too long... Dorcas gets auto-recruited if he's alive at the end of the map, even if you didn't recruit him, so I imagine it works the same for the esteemed Mundo.



A little of this, a little of that, badabing and badaboom, Bob's your uncle.



Goddammit.



... Oh. The map's still going. Huh. Also? Shit. Actually, wait, why is Mundo tagged as a boss? He's a recruitable character! Why would he... wha?



As a sidenote, there's no way to get to these chests, since we don't have a doorkey. That mercenary's just sorta stuck there, since he doesn't have a 1-2 ranged weapon, and those chests will taunt us for all eternity.



Anyway, Lilian can probably dodge one of those bandits (hopefully), so let's just have Zack take out the mercenary. I would have had Zack rescue her, but, y'know, he has negaverse CON and therefore can't even pick up a little girl.



First guy hits.



Second guy hits too. Luckily, Lilian survives with all of 3 HP.



Also, this guy shows up. This is new, I... think? It's been a while since I've played In Occupation's Shadow on Hard Mode, since I usually just skip to Hector's story.



New guy's a... Bers... Corsaer...? What?

Okay, lemme try to explain this one:

1) Pirates are a class in FE7.
2) Pirates promote to Berserker.
3) There's a class that's exactly like Pirate, called Corsair, that gets used in a couple of maps in FE7. Same map sprite, same animation, same weapons, same everything. I'm not sure what the difference is between Pirates and Corsairs.
4) Ergo... this guy's a promoted Corsair? Called a BersCorsaer.
5) I need a drink.



Sephyz kills a man.



Also, a Pirate spawns in as reinforcements. In the walled off section. I guess he and the Mercenary can keep each other company? Can love bloom, even in an inaccessible part of the battlefield?



Lilian goes to talk to Dr. Mundo...



Again, I didn't leave anything out. Lilian's line is immediately responded to with Mundo's. How the hell does one sentence flow into the other, here? What's Mundo even talking about? He never mentions stealing anything for the rest of the conversation. The rest of it is just a find/replace on Dorcas's recruitment conversation, which involves him having joined the bandits as a mercenary, for the money. Not stealing anything. I'm so confused.



See?



Take your The Sucker... and suck!



In addition to taking his Killer Axe... and killing! He can take his Hand Axe... and Hand! and... wait hold on, a Poison Axe? The player isn't supposed to be able to access those. I'm not sure if that's an oversight or an intentional decision on Mig64's part, but either way I hate him for it.



Also, despite apparently specializing in axes, he has a C rank in lances, same as his axe rank. Which is fine with me, since he's also our first lance user.



For his first move, he gibs an Archer.



As a sidenote, his sprite isn't incredibly terrible or anything. I actually kind of like the coloring job on it. I know, it's mindblowing. I mean, the skirt's a bit weirdly colored, but it looks passable.



Meanwhile, Zack shows the new guy how a real tank rolls.



Mundo responds in kind. Oh, and by the way, can you spot what's wrong with this screenshot?



No need to spot what's wrong with this one. Reinforcements randomly spawning on the walls? Sure, okay. Maybe the idea is that they've got ladders outside and are climbing over them to get onto the walls, or something. Mig64: innovative Fire Emblem map design.



Anyway, Zack and Mundo can both facetank, but Zack can also gib people. True balance.



Mundo's efforts are... decidedly less impressive.



Lilian moves around. What I wanna do is feed the BersCorsaer () kill to her.



So let's have Santangelo weaken him. The Bandit needs to land a hit this turn and on his turn to kill, and with 41% hit chance I don't see that happening. Santangelo, meanwhile, is guranteed to land both hits, and that'll put him in kill range for Lilian.



Orr Santangelo could just crit him. Sure.



Axel decides to put the cast of Silent Hill 4: The Room out of their misery.



Santangelo decides one crit isn't enough.



Again, some defense would be nice, but could be worse.



Mundo decides to roll them bones, but doesn't make anything of it.



Santangelo comes to his side to help him out.



Lilian uses a vulnerary, to finally recover from all those misadventures.



Now, it's time for an episode of Goofus and Gallant.



Mundo's Miss Meter: 1



No whammies no whammies no whammies...



That's a whammy! (2)



Gallant shows him up.



Axel plays for Lilian because he can, and it's free EXP. He gets a shitty level from it.



Meanwhile, I manage to find the weirdest possible frame to catch a picture of.



Mundo is a constant disappointment. (3)



Sephyz bails him out.



And baby makes four.



Santangelo uses a vulnerary too, since he was getting pretty low from all the Myrmidon hits he was tanking up here. In the hall of Myrmidons.



A hall of Myrmidons for him to kill.



At least Mundo's failures aren't getting him killed.



Small comforts. (5)



Wait, hold on, didn't Santangelo crit you twice?



He goes where he pleases, and pleases where he goes.



Wait... Natalie is joining? I guess as our transporter? A transporter in Lyn's story is kind of neat. I... guess? Kind of unnecessary, but neat. I can't really see any problems with it, at least.



You know, Mig64, there's this thing called a... well, I guess a spellcheck wouldn't catch this. A proofreader? Just having a friend going through the script?



Next Time: Border of Life and Death.