Part 62: Chapter 4, Epilogue: Rigel Castle II

The first chapter of the game ended with Alm storming and capturing the royal castle of one of the nations of Valencia. The fourth chapter ends the same way, this time with Alm slaying his father, Rudolf the First, the king of Rigel. For some reason.



Let's skip the guy right in front of us for now, and talk to everyone else.





Alm's got his own guard force now. They'll never be seen again.



The other random guys here all say the same thing.



This guy won't let us pass until we talk to Mycen, whom I guess is the one guy we haven't talked to yet. Spoiler!



Alm's a little slow on the uptake, here. Though to be fair he just found out he killed his dad, who had previously invaded his homeland for some yet-to-be-defined reason.



Also, how is Mycen here? Did he just skip the whole game while we were fighting our way across Sofia and Rigel to be here waiting for us? Was he hiding in Alm's army all along as some kind of tag-along?



Thanks to Alm becoming both patricide and regicide in one swing.



And Alm asks what we're all thinking right now. Here's the answer:

Don't cry, Alm.... Let me clarify your father's actions. Valencia became divided because of the gods. They have involved themselves too deeply with mankind's affairs. As a result, the people have lost balance and head for ruin. After some consideration, Rudolf posed as a destroyer to instigate the advent of true heroes in Valencia. I was told this when he placed his newborn child into my hands: "This child will consign himself to hell's fire!" I couldn't refuse him. And so, I left all to fate. Alm, you mustn't let Rudolf's sacrifice be in vain. Go underground and slay the evil god Doma!

Whoa, okay, lots of exposition there. So, the gods are too involved, so Rudolf decided to seal Mila away with the holy sword Falcion. (Not to be confused with the Falchion, I guess, which was Marth's holy family sword from the first game. Ok, they're probably actually supposed to be the same name, but it's totally a different sword.) By the way, we didn't actually receive the Falcion in that battle - it's still somewhere else.

As a result of Mila going away, crops failed for several years in a row (as mentioned in the second chapter's prologue) and people started eating dirt or something. Then I guess Rudolf couldn't face Doma directly or something, because instead of facing up to the other god, Rudolf decided to invade Sofia to try and force someone else to fight back and take over for him. I'm not sure what his plan would've been if Alm hadn't fought back or been killed along the way, but I guess there's only so much you can expect from the story of an NES game.



Oh, and Mycen joins us. What's that actually mean, you ask?



He's actually not terrible - that 18 Defense is the best on the team, and his 22 Power is respectable. His Speed is unfortunately low, but Mycen is definitely more useful than half of our current army. His growth rates are almost nil, but how many more levels could he be expected to gain in this last chapter, anyway?

The first game had a similar character named Jeigan - an older advisor-type to the main character, with a promoted class and higher stats than anyone else at the start of the game, but with growth rates so terrible that the rest of the army quickly outpaced him. It became something of a theme in later games, though later incarnations were never quite as useless in the long run. In Gaiden, Mycen represents the 'Jeigan' archetype, but turned on its head - he joins at the very end of the game, and his starting stats are good enough to contribute to the final team right away. Unless you've been over-leveling a team full of Dyute-like monsters, anyway.



Thus ends the fourth chapter.


New Characters

Mycen is the last character to join, but if you haven't been grinding up your characters by repeating random battles endlessly, he can still be pretty useful with high HP, Power, and Defense. He makes for a strong, mobile tank - just don't expect him to ever really improve.
Next time:



Alm heads to Doma's Tower to finally reunite with Celica.