Part 2: Jagen Rides Again

Part 1: Jagen Rides Again



So here we have the rousing start of our adventure, a "meeting". That's vague enough for any proper prologue.



And here we have Steve making her glorious debut. She's the sprite at the very bottom there. She walks up the steps until...

WHAM



See, that's what happens when you constantly wear a facemask and ridiculous bangs. You get into head on collisions with an anime.



Although, to be fair, it didn't look like her eyes were even open, so I'm blaming this on both of them.

: I-I'm sorry. I was in a hurry, and... Excuse me, did you come here to become an Altean knight as well?

Altea is the home country of Marth, hero of the first game and the only match for Fox in Smash Bros. Melee.

: Yep. I came here all the way from Sera village when I heard they were recruiting new knights. The name's Steve.






: But there sure are a lot of hopefuls here. Look, there's one over there and another there...

Katarina demonstrates her ability to count to two.



Bahaha, I didn't mean to capture Luke here mid-blink, but I think it worked out for the best.

: The first chapter of my epic saga to become Altea's greatest knight!



Luke's more sensible haired life partner here has no time for his shenanigans. FE fans can probably already guess what roles these two will play.



*laugh track*



Jagen? That guy's still alive? I mean, he's got to be like 90 by now.

The group goes outside, and we meet:



It's Jagen! Jagen is the first in a long, proud line of characters in the series. In the prequel, he is a prepromoted unit who is extremely powerful when you get him early in the game, but his terrible stat growths cause him to sputter and lose steam very quickly. If you were only using Jagen because he was so powerful, hope you like restarting! (More commonly, characters of this archetype are called "Jeigans", after his Japanese name). We will be getting a Jagen. It will not be Jagen.

: Knights will be chosen by their ability, not by their blood. The path is not easy, though.



I included the bottom screen here to show that Jagen is speaking to...9 people. Not including himself. Senility is setting in.

: T-this is nervewracking.

It's really not. That's Jagen.

: I'm nervous too, but I've been training hard for this day.

She's lying, she's level 1.

: So we expect every one of you to show us the fruits of your arduous training! Apprentices, I want you to gather in pairs! You will be facing real Altean knights in mock combat!

: Huh? We have to fight? T-this could be a problem... Steve, would you please partner with me? I'm training to become a strategist.

Katarina immediately wusses out of a pitched battle with some generic soldiers. Clearly she will be a powerful ally.

: A strategist?

Steve has never seen a strategist. She's probably never seen anything.

: Y-yes. I can give you advice on how to fight, but I can't fight at all...

Once again, Jagen. His arthritis is gonna start acting up anytime now.



Fine, generic soldier man. I only screenshotted you because I didn't feel like making your portrait, asshole. (Or stealing it from FEWiki. Thanks, FEWiki!)

: Got it! Let's go, Katarina! The test is about to start.

: Y-yes! Let's do our best.



Finally, gameplay! This screen might take some explaining.

At the top, you can see Steve's stats on the far left. The weapon icons represent her skill in using those types of weapons, right now only up to D rank Tomes. On the right is her inventory, with the number of uses left on those items. That Fire book is our standard attack right now, and the Vulnerary will restore 10 HP, at the cost of a turn. The bottom right shows us bonuses from the terrain we're standing on (jackshit right now), and at the top is miscellania like our level, current experience points (100 per level), current HP, movement range, and stats that will come into play in combat.

Atk is how much damage we'll do before subtracting defenses, Hit is our hit percentage before subtracting Avoidance, Rng is the range in squares of our current weapon, Crit is our chance to critically hit before subtracting enemy luck, and Avo is our dodge rate, subtracted from the enemy hit rate.

Got it? Good. That's one infodump out of the way.



Selecting Steve shows us her movement range (in blue) and attack range (in red). This map has two enemies, Jagen up in the top left, and that generic soldier in the middle. Let's take care of him first.



This shows up when we choose to attack. We'd normally choose our weapon here, but we only have one. You can see more detailed stats here that match up to the units fighting. Mt is how much damage we do, Hit is hit rate, and Crit is our chance to critically hit for triple damage. Steve's stats are in blue, the enemy's would be in red.

However, he's got a 1 range weapon, where we have a 2 in our tome, so he can't counterattack at all. Easy pickings.



I know Jagen said this was mock combat, but that fire looks pretty real to me.



As does that . Shit!

That was the enemy's turn. All enemies move after allies in this series, no interspersed turns like Final Fantasy Tactics.

Jagen did nothing on his turn. He was probably nursing his aching back.



Steve's counterattack finished the soldier, leaving the field looking like this. We're down 10 HP from that stab...I wonder if there's a way to fix that.



Hey Jagen. I'm just gonna pick Item here and...



Take a swig of our delicious vulnerary! It has 3 uses, as you can see on the top or bottom screen.



Full Health again! But it's Jagen's turn. Hopefully he doesn't move, or have a





Fuck! A Javelin. That's a 1-2 ranged weapon, and it hits Steve for over half her health. She counterattacks to remove 9 of Jagen's 23 HP, but...



I was worried it would come to this. Poor Steve just doesn't have the defense to take two shots from Jagen, so I have to spend my second turn chugging a vulnerary, doing 9 more damage on the counterattack.



However, on the third turn, Jagen has only 5 HP left, meaning I can kill him before he can counter.



Burn, you old bastard.





That's the end of Jagen, but...







A decent level. Those are all stats I like. Eagle eyed readers might have noticed Steve getting XP for defeating the generic soldier and fighting Jagen, reaching a total of 70. Finishing him off got us 100, leveling her up to 2 and giving us a hefty 70 point headstart on her next level.

Level ups in Fire Emblem are based on Growth Rates. These are the percent based chances you'll gain a stat. This means that luck is a factor, resulting in different stats everytime you play the game. You can get no stats on a level up. It is soul crushing.






Jagen. If that had been Frederick you'd be a blind smear on the ground. Then he'd have to sweep you up.

: Yes... that was most splendid! I see we can expect much from this year's apprentices.

: You did it! We won, Steve! ...But I didn't really do anything... It was all thanks to you that we won, Steve!

I'd be modest here, but yeah, she was useless. Steve burned those two guys all by herself.



That was the only test? Beating up an elderly man and his faceless goon? No wonder Altea got invaded in the first game, their standards are low.



Marth is back. He was the hero of the prequel, and is one of the most recognizable FE characters, sheerly because of Smash Bros. He's around 20 in this one, if you're wondering.

: Ah, it's Prince Marth! He looks so majestic. So that's the face of the hero who saved the world. I love the stories about Prince Marth in the last war. How about you, Steve?

: Of course. After all, Prince Marth was the hero who brought an end to the previous war.



Exposition runs rampant in Castle Altea. We'll get more prequel recap next time as well.

: You there, silence! You stand before Prince Marth!

: Eep!

Geez, that was a little rude. Marth is a pretty nice guy, I doubt he'd care.

: Everyone. I'm truly happy that so many came to help shoulder Altea's future. With the war over, peace has returned. However, peace isn't something we can simply take for granted: It is my duty, as ruler, to risk my life to protect it. Alone, I am powerless. So, everyone. From now on, I want you to lend me your power, as my knights.



: Hear hear, Prince Marth! It was wonderful hearing Prince Marth speak, wasn't it, Steve?

Pssh. Fangirl.

: Yeah, it was. We have to do our best as his loyal knights.



Avengers, Assemble!

And with that, we're done with Prologue 1.

Come back next time for Part 2, Team Fortress 4.