Part 2: Chapter One, Part Two: Like all Fire Emblem games - Thieves
Chapter 1, Part 2: Like all Fire Emblem games - ThievesHello and welcome back to Let's Play Fire Emblem Gaiden.
Last time we watched Alm set off on his great adventure and today, we're going to take a look at the world map.
The world map shows us all enemies we're going to fight, as well as locations we can explore. This time, we're going to clear Thief Woods and Thief Shrine.
As for what the Power means, it is a sum of Power, Skill, Speed, Luck and Defence of all the units present in the area. So you can see, even though the thieves in Thief Woods outnumber us, they are still inferior to Alm's group.
And now, it's time for:
Game Mechanics posted:
Move is self-explanatory. It allows us to move to an adjacent area.
Units gives us a list of our characters, so we can review their stats and change their position on the unit roster. This is useful when we're fighting a battle that does not allow all of our characters to participate.
Item is for managing item in our possession. We can swap them between characters and take them in and out of storage.
Data is for reviewing our characters in detail.
Rest means doing nothing, allowing wandering monsters to move. This does not concern us at the moment.
Save just saves and quits the game.
Now we've stalled enough, so let's attack the Thief Woods.
It turns out that I have overestimated the enemy.
Before starting the fight, let's explain some more game mechanics.
Game Mechanics posted:
The presence of an enemy archer and a question posted in the thread brings us to the topic of weapons. In other Fire Emblem games weapons have a limited number of uses before eventually breaking and some kinds weapons are more effective when used against other kinds of weapons.
Gaiden is different. Every class has a weapon they use, but except for the bows they're the same. The class weapon only affects which items can a given character equip. For example, Luka uses spears, so he can only equip spears.
This base weapon, as well as all other equippable weapons, has unlimited uses.
As for axes, in this game, they're an enemy-only weapon. As soon as we stop fighting thieves, we stop seeing axes.
Bows are different. In other FE games, bows had a range of exactly two squares. In Gaiden, they have a range of 1-3 squares, meaning than an archer can fight in close combat. However, they have a base accuracy of 70%. This means that while archers may seem more versatile at first sight, they actually almost suck. At least whenever there's cover available.
Why? A chance to hit in Gaiden is calculated as (Weapon's Accuracy+Skill) while chance to dodge is calculated as (Terrain bonus+Speed). Forests give 40% cover and recovery spots even 60%. This means that an archer is going to have problems with actually hitting a unit in cover. And now, finally back to battle.
Luka actually managed to double attack the archer.
Turn 2
Except for the archer, all enemies moved to attack me. Cliff successfully dodged an attack, gaining 1 experience point he needed to reach 100 and next level.
Do you remember that Cliff had 93 experience at end of the last battle? Where did he get 6 more? Well, in Fire Emblem Gaiden, all characters that participated in a battle gain some experience at the end. It never gives them another level, but it is nice.
Anyway, Cliff gained 1 point in Speed and 1 point in Defence. Now, it's time for a counterattack.
I hoped Luka would kill that archer, but he missed one of his attacks since the archer is hiding in a forest. Also, Alm did not give that one thief a chance to retreat.
Turn 3
Enemies mostly retreat. Those that do not are not very successful in attacking our units hidden in forests. Everything is going well.
Nothing exciting here. I'm just moving everyone to new positions.
Turn 4
The thieves are now retreating even more. Apart from that, Luka got a level. The only gain was a +1 to HP, but it's better than nothing.
It's clear that we're going to win. The archer may put up some resistance, but
it is a matter of time before he dies.
Turn 5
It's too bad that enemies in Fire Emblem cannot run away from battle. It would be more realistic, though certainly much more frustrating since so much experience would just run away. It would still look better than enemies sadly standing on the battlefield, waiting to be slaughtered.
The archer is at 1 HP. Even with regeneration from the recovery spot, Alm needs to hit only once to kill him.
Turn 6
Alm misses twice.
Turn 7
Alm misses twice.
Turn 8
Alm misses once. Due to regeneration, archer is now at 9 HP.
Turn 9
Alm hits twice. Archer dies.
We've won. Hooray.
Let's go visit the Thief Shrine.
Thief Shrine is another explorable area. It is actually almost identical to several other similar shrines. Anyway, we go north.
It's an encounter! These five thieves respawn every time you visit the thief shrine and, as such, are great opportunity to level grind. There's one more thing that makes these thieves so useful and that is their random drop. Yes, enemies in Gaiden randomly drop items and thieves drop the most useful item of all, the Angel Ring. We're going to get our hands on Angel Ring in Chapter 3, so I'll leave an explanation of its effects until then, but be assured that it's great. The sad thing is, you need to kill around 300 of these thieves to get the Angel Ring and I'm not willing to grind so much.
Anyway, I'm going to skip this battle. It's pure filler, there's nothing to show off here.
Robin and Alm leveled up in this battle. Alm got +1 in Power and Defence, Robin +1 in Skill and HP.
After defeating the thieves, we enter the shrine proper. There are several objects we can interact with, so let's take a look at all of them. First, the person.
I was brought here by bandits. Please, let me come with you.
Cleric Silk joined you!
Great, we've got ourselves a healer. In all Fire Emblem games, it is a rule that priests and cleric are generally defenceless until they are promoted into a better class. Again, Gaiden is an exception.
Game Mechanics posted:
Priests and clerics heal with spells, mages attack with spells. In other Fire Emblem games, spells are treated just like weapons. They are actually weapons, magical tomes and staves. In Gaiden, spells function differently.
Every character with magical abilities knows some spells. They're divided into categories of white and black magic. White is healing and other support magic, Black is attack magic.
Unlike weapons, accuracy of magical attacks is purely dependent on the spell in question. Skill is useless to spellcasters. Terrain does not provide cover against magic, however Luck is factored into evasion chance. Still spells are generally more accurate than weapons.
Each spell also provides a bonus to damage inflicted with it and most enemies have Magical Defence much lower than their regular Defence.
Magic sounds great, doesn't it? Well, there's a catch. Casting spells in Gaiden costs hit points. Every spell has its cost in hit points and some of the more advanced spells cost up to 14 HP a shot. There are ways to neutralize it, but mage groups should be very careful.
Silk here knows two spells: Recover and Nosferatu. Recover is a healing magic that heals hit points equal to caster's power, but only to one adjacent unit. Recover costs 1 HP to cast. Nosferatu is black magic and it is fairly unique in that it is free to cast. It has only 50% accuracy, but all damage done to enemy heals the caster, it is also Silk's only way to gain experience as healing allies does not give any.
Before I forget, here are Silk's stats.
It is going to be hard to level her up. Until she gets better defence, she will need cover. At least she's got almost decent speed, so with luck, she should be able to double attack.
These lion heads are in each shrine and they offer boosts to various attributes. Here, the left one offers speed and the right one HP. They have three uses and after that, they are useless. Since left is right, I gave one speed to Alm and two to Silk.
step forth to gain your promotions.
This statue is where we change class of our characters. It is a staple of Fire Emblem series that after reaching certain level (usually 10), characters can be promoted into a more powerful class. Gaiden mixes this up a bit. Some characters can be promoted multiple times, some can be promoted into several different classes and the levels needed to promote certain classes vary.
Our villagers, for example, are the class that has several possible promotions. They are Cavalier, Soldier, Mercenary, Archer and Mage (Male). Villagers can also be promoted at level 3, which means only Cliff can't be promoted at the moment.
At this point, I leave it to you, readers. What promotions should I give to Cliff, Robin and Gray? Just give me three classes you would like to see and I'll promote the most suitable villager.