Part 8: The White Wolf

The next chapter better not be us vs Linus.



Also, this is again the same map as it is in the default game. Only... at night. No, seriously, the original map took place during the day, this map takes place at night. But the actual layout is exactly the same.



Also, Nils has been replaced by a terrible recolor of Harken's sprite.



And seriously, this is like the fourth time this 'Fire Emblem party' thing has come up! Is Mig64 trying to... okay, repetition is a thing writers do, usually to reinforce a message or theme. For instance, the 'A man chooses, a slave obeys' thing in Bioshock gets repeated like twenty times in the last few hours of that game.



Mig64 has chosen to drill the theme and message of "Fire Emblem party' into us, the readers. I don't think I'll ever be able to take the word 'party' seriously again, in any context.



And this dude just went through weird mood whiplash when he reverted back to his regular dialogue from the actual game.



And... he actually has a good point here. He is a faceless generic, and Nils and Ninian are incapable of defending themselves. It's not written like an actual joke, but still.



Ready for what?



Also, behold Not!Athos's glorious recolor. His beard looks like it's made of seaweed.



"I'm not sure, but I know something nonsensical will happen now that we're here."



"Well what do you know."



With Nils suddenly being an adult and Sain suddenly being a kid, the dynamic of this scene is completely changed. And not for the better.



Also, Mig64 has, of course, not accounted for Nils suddenly being an adult. His dialogue is completely unaltered. He talks like a little kid - a very well-spoken little kid, but still a little kid. Coming from an adult, it just seems disconcerting and odd.



How do you know she's a child? Not-Nils is a grown-man, and he didn't even mention whether his sister was younger or older. Also, you're a child!



Axel becomes scottish.



Don't worry about us, grown man who talks like he has severe brain damage. We have at least three characters who have literally destroyed the game's mechanics by mere virtue of their existence.



... Wait, King Desmond? That's the King of Bern! The guy Mundo is a recolor of! Why is the King of Bern involved in the succession of Ostia? Why is he even alive? He died somewhere inbetween FE7 and FE6! It's strongly implied (if not outright stated) that Zephiel killed him! Zephiel! The villain of 6? Remember him, Mig64?

I don't think you've actually played FE6, Mig64. I think you just google translated the game's script. Then got drunk before you read it.



This is a new line, but it doesn't make our Nils replacement seem any less brain damaged.



"Boy?" C'mon, Mig, if you aren't gonna change any of this, just recolor a little boy sprite. There's plenty you could use.



Also, how is Lloyd alive? He died in FE7! We're post FE6! He was a major villain in FE7, too, this isn't just some mook. You can't just slap 'different dimensions' onto your title to account for nothing making any goddamn sense.



Truly a terrifying battle cry.



Thank goodness. I can think of a few people who are hitting the bench.



Like... Nata...lie...? Wait, Natalie, what happened to your tent?



Answer: Apparently Merlinus wormholed in and stole it back from her because he wanted to manage our inventory. Works for me.



Matthew is incredibly useless due to how broken everyone else is, but he has a specific purpose on this map. Axel is just gonna ram his magic cap and I don't need a bard, Mundo isn't really useful on offense or defense, and Natalie is a literally useless liability who I would have to be stupid to deploy. Let's roll.



First we need to meet Gandalf the Green.



Hold on to your seats, ladies and gents.



First, look at that first sentence. That's the most tortured thing I've ever read. Second... Serra, Corsa, and now this clown... does Mig64 really enjoy a character having multiple magic types? Because if so, he'd fucking love FE4. I do enjoy how we keep getting characters that make our actual lord more and more redundantly inferior. At least Lyn was the only Swords/Bows user in the game besides Rath.



No, no he has not. Trust me, I'd be much happier if he had.



Might be a problem with that plan, game.



So, yeah. Holy completely breaks the game. In about eight different ways.



This may be because he is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.



He has Athos's PRF-tome and two of the four S-Rank magic tomes from FE7, the weapon rank to use them, and, inexplicably, a one-use Sol Katti.



Geitz is also ridiculous. No idea why his bases are so high - those are higher than Geitz's actual averages at level 20, I'm pretty sure.



Kin sucks. Though I'm pretty sure he's a Knight running of Nils' Bard Growths, which is pretty hilarious.



So, yeah, he gives attacking the shaman a go. Even with his Killer Lance, he fails to capitalize.



Also. Light -. Not Light S. Light -. Anyone can use Aureola, because - is literally the rank of not having a rank in the weapon type. Even physical units who don't have any magic ranks at all, or even animations for casting, can use it.



We know what must be done.



BEHOLD.



Like I said, physical units have no animations for using magic, so it can be a bit hard to depict in screenshots what's going on. The game doesn't crash, though, so there's that - there's a glitch that lets you achieve a similar effect in FE8, but I'm not sure you can do anything like this in a vanilla cart of FE7 without hacking/using a gameshark/whatever.



Well, it does boost resistance by 5.



Technically speaking.



Also, the end turn command is gone. Again. Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.



Anyway, let's have Lilian become a god among mortals.



The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.



Wait what-



Well, okay, Lilian dodged, so she can just nuke him, but why is his damage so high?



Wait, how huge was that defense boost from Aureola? Don't tell me-



Don't fucking tell me



WELP



...



You know, I didn't want to repeat this gag. Ostian Princess forced my hand.

Seriously though, the explanation this time is pretty simple. From what I can tell, the defense boost from Aureola is so high that it actually pushes our units into negative defense, and not in the fun 'healing from taking damage' way. I'd think Mig64 literally just did some stuff and slapped the game up without testing it, but his site said he went through versions. He patched this bitch!



Anyway, let's, once more, try all that again.



We used to have one, but a dimension hopping middle-aged man kicked her out of it.



Let's do a trading chain to get this bad boy onto a sword user. They can save it for... later. The final boss of Lyn's story, probably.



Once again, this map is a real yawnfest. Our units are ridiculous, for the most part, but the enemies are exactly the same as they were in the normal game. I put Matthew at the front just to give myself some sense of danger. This hack is not well-designed in any way.



At least I can try and get Kin a level for the novelty of seeing how laughably stupid Nils's growths will be on a Knight.



Anyway, we just push our way forward.



There's one big point of interest, and then Lloyd for whatever he's worth, but the mooks just aren't worth noting. They don't even give out enough EXP for anyone to gain a level.





Seriously, this is starting to get kind of sad. You could get numbers like this in vanilla FE7 too, but usually not until the very late game.



Let's just check out the village. Hopefully this one is a village and not, you know, an armory. Again.



Even with the massive defense penalty, this thing still one-shots everybody. Besides, the only enemy nearby is a mage, and it doesn't fuck up resistance any.



Though he goes for Geitz instead of Santangelo.



Geitz makes it across the river and responds in kind.



Well, I know it can apparently make arrows hurt a whole hell of a lot more.



Wait, what? Yes you can. Just sorta shift awkwardly to the side. Bam, you avoided magic. Are you drunk?



Anyway, the only enemies around are Shaman, and again, Santangelo's resistance is fine. So, he can now solo what's left of the map.



Though, again, they try their luck with Geitz instead.



Corsa weakens them some just for some stray scraps of EXP.



Let's get Matthew a kill, too, why not.



The rest suicide on the animationless Santangelo, so let's just get started on Lloyd.



"Black Fang Units?" No, they were just the Black Fang.



Whatever, let's let Santangelo kill him.



Yep, he sure is a dead boy, considering he died in FE6. Lilian's own mom helped kill him. Hell, depending on the player, Lilian's mom could have literally been the one person to kill him.



This level sucks, Santangelo.



No, no, the mad one is his brother Linus. Mad Dog Linus and White Wolf Lloyd. Get it right. Not to mention Lloyd's entire characterization was being calm and reasonable compared to his aggressive brother.



We sure are, mysterious stranger!



And by mysterious stranger I mean barely recolored Jaffar.



Oh, is he? You mean our Zack? Hey, Zack, your son's right here! Wanna maybe say a few words? Congratulate him on being such a noble kid? Be glad he's okay after doing something so dangerous as confronting kidnappers?

Zack?

Zack...?



'Know' your father? He's two feet in front of you!



Really? You'd think Zack would have mentioned that.



"Yeah, help? Who needs that."



Ninian worries so much about her brother. Also, this isn't exclusive to this hack, but saying some of the clunkier class names in actual dialogue has always rubbed me the wrong way. 'Armor Knight?' That's just weirdly written.



Also, I misidentified Axel's sprite when he first appeared, and I apologize. He's actually a Nils recolor. Nils being Ninian's brother in the normal game. Which makes this little bit kinda weird.



And by later she means never.



"For instance, Kin's special talent is being terrible."



... Okay, you know what, Mig64? I'm just going to go back and get a collage of reasons you can't point out any very minor errors in any writing ever.







I rest my case.



Huh. That's... new. Well, let's give it a shot, I guess?



Hm? Wait hold on, Ju!?



Wow, this is startlingly coherent coming for something that I'm almost positive was written by Mig64. What the hell happened to all those other lines, then?



... Well, okay, that bit falls a bit flat, but still.



Next Time: Wait, what? General Murdock? Hold on, don't cut me off, there are several problems with th-


*BONUS CONTENT*




Now, in normal FE7, this house has a cameo by Hector a few chapters before he actually shows up. Now, in this hack Hector is ill and bedridden due to poison from Uther, so I'm curious who'll be in here. Probably a shitty recolor, but still.



It's Hector. Wow, that's really interesting. I wonder who Enemok is? Probably our Eliwood replacement.



Haha, you lovable rapscallion, you. No wonder people call you their favorite lord, Hector!

...

WHAT THE FUCK?










Way to fucking go there, Uther. You sure had your top fucking men on the job! Why is here - and how is he - with the - and the -

WHY IS HECTOR HERE!?

Actually, you know what? Sure. Hector is a wizard that can be in two places at once while poisoned. I can roll with it.



WHY IS MATTHEW WORKING FOR HECTOR? Shouldn't he be working for Laus in this hack? Hector is - Hector is - they could have swapped the - and the -



"I'm dying of poison, but I figure that's a fair handicap."



"Yeah, no kidding. He's poisoning me! Like, right now. There's poison in everything I drink and eat. Hey, want some water?"



Wait, wait. Santaruz? If Hector is... here... but Hector was mentioned as being Marquess of Ostia. In this very hack! And Serra works for Laus, and Matthew had the same talk with Serra that mentioned them working for the same lord, so...



"Oh, sure! No problem! I'll let him know during our daily ritual of him trying to make me shit out my own skeleton.."



Okay. Maybe, maybe, Serra will shed some light on the situation.



Wait. Bern?






HOW THE FUCK DOES ANY OF THIS FIT TOGETHER IN THE SAME UNIVERSE?