Part 22: Chapter 5 Part 3: Phinora-Velthomer

Chapter 5 Part 3: Phinora-Velthomer

Are you ready for more desert? Because I know I am! Let's kick Velthomer's ass!



Oh, right, Thracia's attacking us. This shouldn't be too hard with our three archers and Wing Clipper.



Oh, we have a bunch of conversations, too. Most lover pairs have a cool little conversation here. I think in my pairings, only Brigid and Lachesis don't, and the only reason Lachesis doesn't is because Fin isn't here.











Sophara is actually a castle in Isaac, which make sense since Holyn has Odo blood. But it looks like they knew each other as kids, then Aira forgot about him. It'd be more romantic if it were more fleshed out, I think. Next, Tiltyu and Azel.















I don't actually have Tiltyu attack Reptor, since I don't think she could survive a blow from him. Anyway, now we have Sylvia and Claude.











There's something interesting about Claude in this chapter, but it's kind of a spoiler, so I'll go over it at the end, in a bonus update or something.



So back on killing things, Fury takes out another Meteo mage.



Our archers take a defensive stand here against Thracia.



It's at this point that I remember that they all have Horsesalyers, so they'll crit Beowulf. Whoops.





Luckily one misses, and Beowulf's durable enough to survive one hit.



And the rest can't reach him.



And one of them actually manages to hit Fury.



However she dodges the other one…



Then promptly kills her attackers.











Being archers, they can't really do much on enemy phase, so I'm kinda forced to have them retreat after attacking.



And we're slowly trudging through the desert with the rest of our units.









Most of the Dragon Knights swarm up on Jamka and Brigid, and since they have pretty good avoid, it's not really a problem.





And Fury dodge more Meteo, then kills her attacker.









Crit Ichival kind of destroys enemies. It's pretty great.























We do some damage, have our horses flee, and have Beowulf guard Phinora so that the enemy can't just destroy it. Also Claude heals everyone.



And we still inch our way through the desert.





The extra evade from the castle helps out Beowulf as he narrowly avoids death.





And the Dragon Knights are defeated. We've like half avenged Cuan.









Now for a while it's just gonna be moving the troops towards Reptor's army.



Fury does have a conversation with Levin though, now that she's done murdering mages.















That's a pretty cute conversation, while still managing to be dramatic and tense as fuck. Let's go over to Jamka now.











Rather than have those two try to catch up with the rest of the group, I have Jamka sell his weapons and Brigid buy them. Jamka can't pass anything down to the next generation, so there's no point in him having them.



Fast forwarding a bit, about half our army has passed through the desert. I forgot that there are Velthomer mages over here too, so Fury and Azel took a hit. Levin's healing Fury up so she can go in and kick ass.



Like so.



Sigurd also equips the Tyrfing for the first time. You really don't get a lot of time to use it, since you won't have it repaired until after Lubeck, and there's not many enemies at Phinora, and the ones that are there are frail enough that you can kill them with the Silver Sword. However, Reptor's army has a lot of mages, so he'll want the +Res from it.











So we get in position, end our turn, and Reptor starts advancing.





Meanwhile, in Velthomer…









Wait what? They're allies now?





Very curious. Really the worst part of this is that we can no longer kill them and get EXP, and they'll try to steal our kills on Reptor's men.









So I'm hoping that most enemies just futilely attack Sigurd, then Azel and Fury can handle any spillover.







Also I send Beowulf back to sell his stuff for someone else to buy. Though I think I forget to have anyone actually buy it. Whoops.



So Velthomer's mages now attack Reptor instead of us… Very curious…











So I'm trying to get some more EXP for my lesser used characters, while clearing a path for Sigurd and Levin (mostly Levin) to kill Reptor.





At this point Sigurd hits level 30! And with pretty great stats, as always.









Aira hits 30 as well! Her HP is a bit low, but her Defense is above average, and that's probably more important.

Let's take a look at Reptor.



So Reptor is pretty damn dangerous, 60 attack, high Speed and Skill, and very durable.





Plus of course the standard Baron stuff, major Tordo blood, and four leadership stars. Of course, I have a plan.



That plan's name is Holsety. Levin with Holsety is pretty much the only character that Reptor even has a chance to miss, since wind beats thunder and Levin has a ton of avoid.





Hit one, and…



Destroyed!



That's actually a really good question.





And everyone dies once he dies. As a quick preparations for people who won't catch up at this point, let's buy/sell things.









Midir gives his money to Aideen, and Dew gives his money to Midir.



Well, let's uh… talk to Ira? Weird.



This is a relatively cinematic cutscene for this game, so I'm putting it in a video instead of trying to show it off in cutscenes.














































Before I start talking about what just happened, you should listen to the full version of that last song, Part 1 Map Melody (yes it's mislabeled Melody instead of Medley). You might've been able to tell, it's a very sad medley of all the first generation map themes, but the part that plays here only goes up to Chapter 2.



So, uh, yea. That just happened. When I first played this game, I absolutely did not see that coming. I always assumed that the first generation would end with Sigurd and company kicking evil's ass, then Manfloy resurfacing in generation two when all our current characters had either passed away or grown too old to fight, so this certainly came as a shock. I believe (though I've never tested it myself) that any characters you had die will appear with Sigurd, Cuan, and Ethlin, while anyone alive appears in the "Those whose fates are unknown" section. And we really don't know who's alive and who's dead, or who lived past the Battle of Barhara but died later or got captured at this point, which I think is cool. It's really a very heartbreaking scene though, and those last few lines really drive that in. Were their efforts for nothing? Games don't often do this, where your main character dies, and everything they worked for is destroyed. They'll sometimes do one or the other, but rarely both. And I think doing both lets the player feel a sense of despair and futility, which emphasizes how powerful Alvis is. And him showing Sigurd Deirdre right before killing him as a final kick in the crotch helps to further that as well. Of course, from a gameplay standpoint, it wasn't for nothing, because the stats, inventory, and money of your parent characters are in some way passed down to the children (I'll explain that later in more detail in a side update), so it keeps the player from actually feeling like the first half of the game was a pointless waste of time.

As for the music, I love all of it here, but I'm especially fond of Part 1 Map Melody and Beloved One (the track that plays when Deirdre comes out). The former is actually one of my favorite tracks in the game. I really like the sad tracks, and I love medleys. End of Despair (the bit that plays when Alvis is killing your troops) is also fantastic. Conspiracy (the one that plays when you learn of Alvis' true intentions) I could take or leave, honestly. Below are links to the music in that last cutscene, followed by our units' final stats.










It may be a bit before my next update, so I'll leave you with this teaser: