Part 43: Endgame Part 5: Velthomer-Barhara
Endgame Part 5: Velthomer-Barhara
It's been a long journey, but we're finally at the end of it. Last time we defeated Manfloy and took Velthomer, but we still have more to do.
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Like waking Julia from her brainwashed slumber.
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Manfloy cast a spell on you... He was manipulating you.
Oh... Now I remember. Manfloy forced me to go with him... I'm so glad you're safe now, Julia. Celice, I have something I... Don't worry about it, Julia. Levin told me everything. I... I feel so bad to you. I really let you down. Not really. For the first time in my life I know what I'm here for. And that's to fight... I'm not scared anymore, Celice. You're really brave, Julia, you know that? We're all behind you on this. I wish things could be different, but we have to face this... We must persevere._00003.png)
Julia joins our army once again, in the same state we left her in. But that's not all we need to do here.
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We still have an ancient tome to reclaim.
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It worked... Look, there it is! The Book of Narga!! It's all yours, Julia! Oh my... What a strange feeling... I feel like I've known this book all my life..._00006.png)
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Narga is pretty much the best weapon in the entire Fire Emblem series. I think there might be one that's slightly better in Gaiden, but I haven't played that so I don't really know. It has the same 30 Mt as all holy weapons, and it's a solid 7 Weight heavier than Holsety, so you might be wondering what makes it so much better.
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Well, that amazing +80 total stat boost for one thing. Narga makes Julia into a tank and a dodge-tank, and makes her pretty much assured to hit anything. On top of all that, remember that tricky property that Loputo has, cutting its opponent's Attack in half? Well Narga ignores that. It'd be great if this weapon were around longer, but by the time you get it, pretty much only Julius will be left. I guess it's possible that you could've kept Ishtar's army and the Dark Warlords alive this long.
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And the first thing Julia will do is heal Celice's wounds. Not that it'll really be necessary.
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So last time Leaf and Leen went on a mad dash to repair the Rescue Staff, and now they'll be meeting up with Celice and Julia in order to get them back to Barhara more quickly.
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A mere turn or two later, we're ready to fight Julius.
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Narga's attack animation is basically a huge golden dragon ascending and exploding into a bright light.
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Conversely, Loputo is basically a huge purple dragon descending and exploding into darkness.
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Julia of course double attacks, and activates Continue with her great Speed.
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Of course, Julius heals a good bit on his turn.
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Instead of killing himself on Julia, he decides to attack Celice, for very little damage.
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And that very little damage is immediately healed.
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Julia heals most of her damage as well. Looks like Julius will have a tough time here.
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So let's see what happens if we attack Julius with Celice.
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We'll see about that!
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So Julius actually has pretty poor hit on Celice. Imagine if we had Lana and our Charisma units here to boost his evade on top of that! Still, only two damage per hit isn't gonna do much for us here.
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So let's just finish this.
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Music cuts into silence.
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I did that one text block in multiple shots to emphasize how slowly the text crawls on that line.
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And with that, Julius and the dark lord Loputousu are slain. Our journey is finally over.
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But first, Julia can gain some last minute levels in the arena!
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Naturally Leen will sell the Elite Ring for Julia to take.
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In order for Julia to afford it though, Shanan has to give money to Patty, who has to give money to Julia.
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Not even the mightiest of warriors can stand up to the power of Narga!
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And Julia ends up at level 29. Not quite capped out, but close enough! Now then, let's see our units' final stats.
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And one final time, let's seize.
Oh, the game crashes during the ending if you have the translation patch on, and none of it is translated anyway, so you'll need annotations turned on if you want to be able to read any of the ending.
Ok, a few things to mention about the ending: I think the way kingdoms and castles are divvied up is kind of odd. The main issue I have with it is that when deciding what kingdom somebody should rule, namely with the castles in Grandbell, it takes the son's father into account before anything else. This gives us the kind of odd scenario where despite his major Ulir blood, Faval rules Dozel instead of Jungby (even though Johan has about as much claim to Dozel as Faval does), leaving Patty to rule Jungby instead of leaving with Shanan for Isaac. It's not a huge issue, but it strikes me as odd. In general, the game gives preference to a male ruling a kingdom first and foremost, and if that's not possible, a female will take over to rule. I a female isn't forced to rule, she'll leave with her lover to help them rule. In the case that nobody is able to rule, Celice will just take over for them. You can actually have every country become a part of Grandbell, rebuilding the empire you just fought so hard to destroy. If anyone's interested in the specifics about how the script changes with different pairings, I'll put links at the bottom of this post.
I really like the ending as a whole. Honestly I prefer the style of every character saying something to the main character over the style most FE games do, where it simply gives a brief statement on what each character went on to do after the game. To my knowledge, FE9 is the only other game in the series that has an ending like this one's.
Secondly, the numbers and ranks you see at the end are inaccurate. In order to record the ending cutscene, I had to use a different emulator, and for whatever reason it could only load an old save that I had (which incidentally had the same pairings as in this LP, luckily enough!). I know the first few numbers are turn counts for each chapter, then I assume the numbers after that are kills and deaths each unit had (like other FE games, this game keeps track of a death even if you reset afterwards and load an earlier save. Of course, loading state doesn't cause the death counter to go up, hence why everyone is at 0 deaths). And lastly, all four of my final ranks were A's. I'll post the turn counts and my best guess as to kills below if anyone's interested.
Prologue: 14 turns.
Chapter 1: 30 turns.
Chapter 2: 40 turns.
Chapter 3: 50 turns.
Chapter 4: 35 turns.
Chapter 5: 26 turns.
Chapter 6: 47 turns.
Chapter 7: 48 turns.
Chapter 8: 21 turns.
Chapter 9: 26 turns.
Chapter 10: 27 turns.
Endgame: 27 turns.
Total: 391 turns (399 is the most you can have and still get an A rank, so we cut it pretty close here!).
Sigurd: 55 kills
Noish: 15 kills
Alec: 26 kills
Arden: 2 kills
Fin: 31 kills
Cuan: 18 kills
Midir: 50 kills
Levin: 17 kills
Holyn: 6 kills
Azel: 45 kills
Jamka: 30 kills
Claude: 0 kills
Beowulf: 41 kills
Lex: 30 kills
Dew: 15 kills
Deirdre: 3 kills
Ethlin: 8 kills
Lachesis: 15 kills
Aira: 28 kills
Fury: 32 kills
Tiltyu: 17 kills
Sylvia: 1 kill
Aideen: 0 kills
Brigid: 20 kills
Celice: 66 kills
Shanan: 25 kills
Leaf: 24 kills
Johan: 27 kills
Fin: 12 kills
Hanibal: 2 kills
Aless: 41 kills
Oifey: 13 kills
Julia: 23 kills
Altenna: 15 kills
Skasaha: 30 kills
Faval: 18 kills
Corple: 0 kills
Sety: 31 kills
Delmud: 36 kills
Lester: 46 kills
Arthur: 32 kills
Patty: 2 kills
Lakche: 41 kills
Lana: 2 kills
Fee: 34 kills
Tinny: 19 kills
Leen: 0 kills
Nanna: 10 kills
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Thanks to HotAndColdAF for getting the correct order that the credits list our units in.
Oh, and I almost forgot the most important thing! So at the end, Celice called Levin, "Holsety of the Wind". Basically, Levin died back in the Battle of Barhara. Manfloy got a lucky shot in and killed him. But then the Dragon-god Holsety revived him, sorta.
Interviewer posted:
First, Levin. As for him, Levin in the first half and Levin in the second half is completely different for both gameplay and storyline. Anyways, even if Levin dies in the first half, he comes back in the second half regardless. Celice even states in the end that Levin is the warrior "Holsety of the Wind" from a distant country. At this point, it feels like Levin is Levin and not Levin at the same time. Is there anything you can comment?
Shouzou Kaga posted:
Realistically, Levin held a destiny where he was supposed to die, but the Dragon race--The gods that descended during the miracle at Darna Fortress was actually of the Dragon race--intervened and he was kept alive. At that time, one of the 'Gesshu'...meaning, by binding contracts that can be seen in Celtic mythology with the Dragon race, Levin is living as Levin.
This means that there's no doubt that the Levin in the second half is basically the same person as Levin in the first half. However, he's given a part of himself to Holsety... And, when the Holy War ends, Holsety actually leaves, but because of 'Gesshu', Levin can't live as Levin so to speak, and cannot retain his original existence so he cannot go back to Silesia and take the crown.
That is why this part is a discordance where the dragon race who had a law to not intervene with the human race did what they are usually not supposed to do--saving a person who was supposed to die.
Actually, other characters who appeared in the first half are in a similar placement. This means that not everyone died, but they are also not allowed to intervene with the glorious acts of the children's generation, so they do not appear in the second half.
Adding more to that, the 12 demon lords of the final chapter. Within them are people who carry the blood of the 12 holy warriors--such as Ahato, Zechs, Zhiben, basically exist in the same way as Levin. This means that they were originally skilled warriors or holy workers. The setting is that their conscience has been absorbed. This means, although it hasn't been stated, each one of them actually have a drama of their own.
So, uh, I guess that kinda of excuses him for being such an ass to his kids.
Now, even though the game is over, this LP isn't quite done. There are a few more things I want to show off, including but not limited to alternate Endgame lover conversations, substitute children special conversations, killing Julius without Narga, and more miscellaneous info about the game taken from interviews.
To be a little bit more specific on that last subject, I'll give you a tease of something that I think is really cool, but that's better left for a separate, bonus update later on. This game wasn't actually supposed to end here. There was supposed a third segment, where the parents and children reunite. But I'll go into more detail on that in another update…
Oh, and on one final note, just about every track during the ending is fantastic! They'll be added to the second post shortly.
Talking at Barhara
The Continent Afterward