Part 1: Chapter One, Part One: Goodbye, home village!
Part 1: Goodbye, home village!The Introduction posted:
Once, two sibling gods, Doma and Mila, lived on this remote island known as Valencia. Doma, obsessed with power, despised mankind's corruption, and fought with his younger sister Mila, who wished for peace. Eventually, the two agreed to split Valencia: The north ruled by Doma, the south by Mila...
Centuries passed. The gods' domains gave rise to two kingdoms: Sofia, the southern realm, and Rigel, to the North. Both grew tactless.
Years passed filled with contradiction. Until finally, two children were born to the royal families of Rigel and Sofia who would reverse fate. Since that day, Valencia began to stir once more, moving into an age of war.
Straight after choosing New Game, the only option available after starting the game, we get chapter announcement. There are five chapters in all, though the last one is quite short. As we can see from the chapter title, we're going to visit the capital of Bulgaria.
Go and play, but don't leave the village. Bandits have been about.
Apparently, Mycen here is Alm's (our hero) foster father. Yes, the hero of the game is an orphan of mysterious origins. Of course, they're going to be revealed and during that we're going to learn that convoluted plans with lots of violence are solution to every problem.
Alm is the guy in the red circle. Unlike other Fire Emblem games, Gaiden allows you to freely explore certain areas and talk with people to hear their one line.
The mechanic of allowing player to walk around and explore is not redundant. There are some puzzles based on this and there are some hidden treasures that can be only found by exploring.
Anyway, we go to the east and see this small group. Only the guy to the right is important, the others tell us to talk to him.
Sofia's castle was captured and the king has been killed. We formed a liberation force to fight against Dozer, but it's not good enough. So, I came to ask General Mycen to help.
We go back to Mycen to tell him the news. Notice that the doors on houses open automatically when we walk into them.
: What? Join the liberation forces?! I won't allow it! War brings only sorrow...I made these talking icons, and I'm going to use them! Anyway, back to Luka.
: No good, huh?... Too bad. Sir Mycen has grown cowardly in his old age. To think he was once called Sofia's hero... 
: Wait-- I'll join in place of Gramps. (This is Alm, by the way.)
: Eh? You'll come in his stead? Thank you. My comrades will be pleased. Let's go to the liberation's base. Soldier Luka joined you!
Getting an untested youth is much better than getting a great general. This is a video game, after all.
Now, let's recruit some more characters.
Well... alright, I'll go with ya. But help me if I get in trouble!
Villager Cliff joined you!
Let's go take back Sofia's castle!
Villager Robin joined you!
This village is bound to get attacked, too, so let's beat up that Dozer guy first.
Villager Gray joined you!
This is as much as we can recruit here, so let's take a look at our brave army.
Alm is the hero of the game and as such, he is pretty much the strongest character we have. Especially his Power of 10 is very good and as he's level 1, he can get a level-up more times than the others.
Luka may be one level higher than Alm, but apart from power and defence, he's inferior. Still, soldier is basically a tank class, so defence is everything Luka needs.
Cliff's saving grace is his high luck and magical defence as well as being only level 1. However, in physical combat, he's still best at being backup.
Robin is a little bit better than Cliff, but still nothing great.
Gray is the highest-level character we have, but is still weaker than Alm. He is however, stronger than Cliff and Robin, which means that he's suitable to serve as a frontliner.
Game Mechanics posted:
Power is the character's attack strength, no matter if magical or physical.
Skill is used in calculating a chance to hit in combat.
Speed is used to determine a chance to dodge an attack and is used for double attacking an enemy.
Luck determines chance to achieve a critical hit. Note that a hit can be both critical and miss.
Defence is used to reduce damage from physical attack. Power-Defence=Damage and all attacks that hit cause at least one point of damage.
M.Defence is the same as defence, but it is used against magical attacks.
And now, let's leave. Immediately upon leaving the village, we enter into a battle with some bandits.
All our units are in position, so let's take a moment to explain this menu.
Game Mechanics posted:
Roster shows our army all at once, so we can easily compare their stats and find out who carries which item.
Assault makes all our units move automatically to attack the enemy.
Gather makes all our units automatically move to Alm's position.
Turns shows how long have we spent on playing the map. All maps have time limit of 40 turns and at end of those, we automatically retreat from battle. Enemies we have killed still stay dead, so there's no real downside to that, apart from mild irritation.
Quit saves and quits the game.
Config allows us to set music, battle animations and text speed.
End Turn is more or less self-explanatory.
We end the turn and the thieves rush to attack us. Alm and Luka stop two of the, but one rushes in between them and attacks Robin.
This is what combat looks like. There are no numerical representations of HP, Attack and Defence, so you can only get an approximation if you're not willing to do exact calculations in your head.
It usually goes that the attacker gets an attack, and then the defender can counter it, if possible. After that, the unit with higher speed gets another attack. Pretty simple.
In the second turn, we send Robin to attack the thief north of Alm. I originally intended for Robin to just weaken him and give the kill to Cliff, but instead...
Killing enemies gives a lot more experience than just wounding them. Robin had 6 points of experience he gained from hitting a thief that attacked him, but now he got 30 experience points for completely killing another one. Since 100 experience points is needed to go up a level, 30 points is pretty good.
In other news, Gray and Cliff gang up on the bandit that attacked Robin and Cliff gets a kill and another 30 experience. Luka attacks his neighbour, but does not succeed in defeating him.
The thieves have advanced in their turn, ignoring Alm and Luka hidden in the forest and went after the weaker villagers. Robin got pretty beaten up and now has only 10 HP left.
The AI is actually clever enough to not try suicide attacks and retreats. However, this only gives Cliff an opportunity to get his third kill, bringing him to 93 experience points, very close to next level.
And with this, the thieves are defeated.
After defeating the thieves, we get to the world map, but that is for the next update.