Part 14: Chapter 10 and Chapter 11: Prep: Begin Again

Bonus Chapter: Fall Of The Palace

So, it was voted that I do a New Archanean Chronicles map next. I'm going with the first one. It's not the first chronologically, but it's the first on the menu. Keep in mind that these are all meant to take place before Shadow Dragon.



Here's the menu, it also displays your high scores for these maps. These are scored on four categories, I'll show them later. Anyway, we're going to do Fall first.





Not sure why the narration is in some guy's library, but okay.









Boah's got a pretty sweet mustache. He also has an inferior version of Wendell's hat.



Fathers of royal characters have a great track record in Fire Emblem. I'm sure he'll be fine.



Does he look like this to anyone else?

: If you manage to escape, we will be able to restore Archanea at a later date... So, please, Princess. For Archanea's future...



: I shall remain in the palace, together with my father till the very end.







This is Dolph. He is not that other guy.

: The enemy is fast approaching. Please make your escape, quickly!



: Dolph, Macellan, take Princess Nyna away from here.



This is Macellan. He is not the other guy.





There's a fade out here. Kinda hard to capture in screencaps.



I love this guy. His name is "Gouber". It should have been a sign to Medeus that his evil plot would fall flat when he had to give orders to "General Gouber".

(I've been playing Tales of Vesperia recently and I giggled like a 9 year old at "Captain Cumore", if that tells you anything about my dumb sense of humor.)





In your house, Nyna



: I'm sad to say... we're completely surrounded by imperial soldiers... It seems it was poor judgment from my part. Princess, I brought you here in such a rude fashion... What I did was truly unforgivable.



: I am the one who should apologize. Either way, bishop, what is our recourse now?







Oh, hey. This is Midia. She's a paladin who contributes to the glut of fairly useless riders in Shadow Dragon.







: No matter what grim fate awaits us, I want us to hold our heads high with pride until the very end. If Midia and the others say they'll fight for me, then I want to entrust them with my final desire. Bishop, please allow my wish to become true.

Nyna, you might want to see your friends' stats before you make such bold claims.











You've already forgot one of them. :shh:











The game is actually giving us a suggested strategy here. I don't know if it's necessarily the quickest way, but Midia's advice works pretty well.



Nyna is a Bishop, a promoted Curate. She has the Mend Staff, which is stronger than a Heal.



Macellan does next to no damage, but he's fairly resilient, at least.



Dolph is the same.



Midia is easily our best character on this map, but she's not as defensive as Dolph or Macellan, which limits her use in holding out against the horde of enemies.



Who the hell are you? You weren't in the cutscene. This is Tomas. Tomas might be the dullest character in Fire Emblem history. He didn't have a single line in FE1/Shadow Dragon. He does not have one on this map. He kinda sucks too.



Boah is essentially the same as Nyna, but he has a Rescue staff, which allows him to bring any unit within range (Range is 1/2 of the user's Magic stat) to an adjacent square. This can break a few maps in the real game...but not quite as much as its cousin, the Warp staff.



Finally starting here, I'm immediately using the knights and Midia to form a barrier that will let me move the others into that little treasure room on the right.





Midia can double these Knights. Doesn't quite kill them, but does enough to soften them up for any other character. Unfortunately, taking a fourth of her health per attack makes her a shitty wall.



Archers can't even hurt the knights.



Get used to this screen. It is like 80% of the map. I'll try and cut some of them out so you aren't bored to death.



Tomas does a whopping 4 damage to these Knights.



One of those Knights dropped a key, which is used to open chests.



This Thunder tome will allow Nyna or Boah to attack, which should help with enemy clearing. This is the gimmick of this map. 3 chests are lying around the map, 3 enemies have keys, and all 3 items are effective against the knights.



I have Nyna on reserve to heal the knights.

The same thing that happened last turn happens again. I won't clog the update with the screenshots. Except for...this.



Fucking Mages. Literally the only scary things (besides Gouber) for Dolph and Macellan here.



You are now witnessing step 3 of this map.

Step 1: Dolph/Macellan stand and take hits, retaliate.

Step 2: Tomas stands at the edge of the wall and snipes people for minimal damage.

Step 3: Nyna and Boah heal.



Fuck this Mage though :/



Here's how things look at the start of our next turn. I need to bring Midia in, and I'm going to move Tomas to the top right corner of the hall to snipe away at the ranged units over there. He'll survive if I keep healing him.



Showing this screenshot to show the problem with Dolph/Macellan's Javelins. They're really only good for Archers/Mages, so you kind of have to decide if you want to be able to damage Knights or Ranged units at the start of each turn. It's tedious as hell.



Oh, I finally gave Nyna the Thunder Tome.



There are some special conversations on this map as well. Here's Nyna/Midia:











Huh. That sounds...familiar.









Actually Dolph and Macellan are defeating most of the enemies. But you uh, hang tight, Midia.



Pictured: What I've been cutting out.



Here's the start of our next turn. See how it looks like nothing's changed? That's this map.

I'll skip through the turn to show the next conversation, Nyna/Boah.



You're right there, Nyna.



You're no Jagen, old man









Well, yeah, I got you a weapon and everything.



And it works!



This will come in handy. Also note the enemies thinning out a little...getting close.

Last conversation, Boah/Midia:







This is a pretty good idea, but since the mages are so interspersed with the knights that do more damage to Midia...you know, I bet you could do this map faster if you sent Midia around the right side to fight the archers/mages, but with no vulnerarys and both healers having low mobility, it might not be possible.



Now more of the same. I screencapped the good bits.



Not terrible...though I don't know how a Knight gets Skill and Speed and not Def or Str.



Average and forgettable. Like Tomas.



That's more what I'd expect.

Alright, now the enemies are cleared, with Dolph/Macellan dealing with the knights on the left and Tomas sniping the guys on the right with Boah/Nyna healing both sides. Time to collect the other two treasures.



I gave both keys to Midia. (She has the Thunder Tome because I needed to take it from Nyna so she wouldn't counter-kill an archer, thus freeing his spot for another.)



Oh and Nyna leveled from healing. Pretty shit, but eh.



The bottom right Treasure is an Armorslayer, a sword that does triple damage to Armored foes. Like Gouber.

The other chest that I lost the screencap of was an Elfire Tome, a powerful magic book. Magic is good against Generals. Like Gouber.



Once Midia finally hauls ass back to the rest, I pass out the goodies. Nyna gets Thunder and Boah gets Elfire.



Midia's keeping the Armorslayer. It will be useful.



So, here's how this needs to work. Gouber and the two remaining knights are up top. I need to lure them to the chokepoint.



Steve's old "Ryan Bait" strategy was evidently pioneered by Macellan. Who knew?



OH GOD RUN



Getting ready here...



One rounding these guys with the Armorslayer feels good.



This is less exciting.



Ow. Gouber hurts.



On my turn, Nyna's Thunder finishes the Knight.



Boah softens up Gouber (can't stop typing that) a little.





And an overkill crit finishes the stage.



R.I.P. Gouber. The only entertaining thing about this boring as hell map.



Good, but...completely pointless.







...oh. I guess that wasn't all of them.







Well, of the map...



Fade out again.



Camus! Camus was an important figure in Shadow Dragon. He's one of those "noble demon" type villains, where he's "honor bound" or whatever to fight for the villains, but he's not a bad guy.

You slaughter him for his lance anyway.



I have no idea what accent this is meant to be. Cockney? Scottish?



I assume he means the adjacent room, because if they're all in the same room this next scene would be really silly.











: I respect your prowess in battle, but further bloodshed is of no value to you or I. May I request that you lower your weapons? I wish to speak with you. I have no weapons on my person. I swear upon the honor of Grust that I will not deceive you.





By Shadow Dragon she had forgiven him. Nyna's not exactly clairvoyant.





Wait, what? Could have used that information in Shadow Dragon. Might have made these characters slightly more interesting. But it's nice to have now, at least.



: Camus may be our enemy, but I hear he is a proud, exceptionally strong knight. He may even be able to protect the princess...







There's a slash sound effect here. Make a "SHHH" sound with your mouth or something.



She's okay. Just knocked over.



Camus, king of



: Pride, you say...?　Surely you jest! Your country betrayed Archanea and degraded itself as Dolhr's slave! What are you!? The captain of Dolhr's dogs, that's what! ...Enough of this. Kill me! You don't need to hold back!

He opened the door How is that a dishonorable tactic?









I assume she's meant to be clutching a knife to her throat or something. Portrait based conversations make some thing unclear.





: Not only your knight, but you as well... are all Archaneans this irresponsible? In Grust, this kind of behavior is reserved for spoilt children only.









Actually, you dying was pretty hard. One of the toughest bosses.





: But your father was a failure of a king. He drowned in pleasure, neglected politics, and ultimately abandoned his people. Archanea's miserable defeat was his doing. The one who led your people to the abyss of despair was none other than King Archanea himself. It is the king's duty to protect his people. King Archanea may have been a good father to you, but he was an incompetent king to his people.

Geez, Camus doesn't hold back.





: However, Archanea has already fallen. What do you suggest I do at this point!?



: So, you must continue to live on, to your fullest, and bring hope to the citizens of Archanea... I hear your citizens love you. To them, you embody the hope of Archanea.

: Ohh...!

Uh, Nyna? You okay?

: Princess, this unfortunate war is now over. I must now return to Grust, but, in a few months, I shall return as the commander of the occupation army. I am no politician, but watching this desolate land brings pain to my heart... I wish for the kingdom of Archanea to become the verdant land it once was, as soon as ideally possible.





: However, don't think my hatred towards you has disappeared.

Subtle, Nyna.









She does make good on that. Not in Archanea though.



: I thought your people adored you because of your beauty, but it seems there's more to it than that.

Camus lays on the charm. The post dad killing charm.





: As but a soldier from the borderlands, I can only manage this rustic manner of speaking, so please forgive me.





"Identical Bald Knights, Mute Archer..."













Well, yeah, there was a whole game about it.



Oh. Whoops. Spoilers.



Huh. Better than last time. I don't know how high these go, I assume the max is 150 for Funds, since I got everything. Survival has to be 120, since everyone lived. Exp and Speed I'm not sure about. I know I could get better speed if I didn't have Midia spend like 5 turns running around the map opening chests at the end.

Anyway, that's the end of that map. It was terribly boring, and I'm sorry I subjected you to it. Next time, we'll see what Steve and friends are up to since the end of the Prologue.


I know you're joking, but you actually do touch on something I totally forgot to mention in the update, that map ends as soon as you kill Gouber. There was actually one enemy, a bishop, who lived, because he didn't come when I baited Gouber and his knights with Macellan at the end there.

Part 11: Begin Again (Prep)

Last time we fought a billion knights and a guy with a silly name in a chapter completely unrelated to the events that happened in the past 9 updates. But trust me, it's important-ish later. This time, we're actually going to start the game.

If you're playing the original version of this game on the Super Famicom, the game starts here. The prologue and Steve are additions exclusive to the remake. I haven't played it, myself, but the remake is pretty much universally considered the superior version.



The sword here hangs out on the bottom screen for this whole speech, so I didn't bother including it in all the shots.





That's Medeus in the back there. What, did you think he'd be a Shadow Dragon? Nah, Earth Dragon. Shadow Dragon just sounds better.



Ooh, let's see if I can name these.

From Right to Left, I think that's Nyna, Hardin, Ogma, Marth, Caeda, Minerva, and Maria (why did they even bother including Maria?)









I think the only one here we haven't heard about yet is Macedon (Except from Est in the Axely route), home of the Wyverns. An evil prince named Michalis was in charge in Shadow Dragon, but Marth helped his sister kill him. (Canonically Minerva kills Michalis. I think that's confirmed later in this one.)



Just to clear up any confusion, the continent and the country are both Archanea. Kingdom Of Archanea refers to the country. (Thanks, SC Bracer)







#23 was killed in the last war, like Camus mentioned.









He also hung up his sweet turban







Cog of Destiny, huh? I swear to god if that fucker Linus crits Heath and makes me replay that map again I'm just going to...



Oh, yeah. This game.



Thanks for the info. All the chapter screens list location now, which is kinda neat.



Also we get to watch Marth's sprite jog across the map!



So, for some reason the guy who did the art for the Shadow Dragon/Heroes Of Light And Shadow splash screens hates eyeballs.





He was quoted as saying: "Of all the women in Altea, like 3 of them have lines, one is my sister, and one might not even be canon, so we're going with you."





Can you imagine wedding planner Jagen? He's just freaking out about the purple armor clashing with the petunias.













"PS: Saw you listed "Vacation To Grust" on the registry. Happy fuckin' marriage-Hardin"











Oh, hey, familiar characters again.



Everyone forgets P5 Also that time you were almost assassinated.





No more takebacks. If a unit died in the prologue, they'd still be playable in the main game. That's over now. Time for Fire Emblem.













That will be pretty damn handy.







Alright, we've hit the first chapter of the main game, and some new options are available. I'll go through them in just a bit, but let's first get a look at our new lineup.



Wrys, Athena, Merric, Caeda, and Cain are gone(Ogma and Est would leave too, if we had them), but we've gained Gordin from the other path (Went over him in Update 9, if you missed it) and Arran the Paladin.

As you can see, Arran is a monster right now. He has a B in Lances, granting him access to those almighty Silver weapons, and a huge 10 square movement range. However, Arran's growth rates?

Flat 0's across the board, aside from 10 in Luck

This is before adding in Class bonuses, but even then, as a Paladin his highest is a 40 in HP, and nothing breaches 25 otherwise. Arran is this game's Jagen. Any EXP he earns is effectively tossed out, and by chapter 7 or so he will be entirely obsolete. However, Arran is absolutely crucial on harder difficulties. He can soften up enemies and serve as a meatshield to block foes. Arran has probably my favorite backstory in the game, but you have to use him a lot to get it. Because of that, we might not see it, but I'll mention it if it comes to that.






In the Inventory menu, we now have access to the Convoy, which holds extra items. Any extras will now be deposited there during battle, and we can access it inbetween maps, or Marth and any adjacent unit can use it during battle.

The weapons of our departed allies from the Prologue are in here.



This is the Reclass menu. Debuting in Shadow Dragon, Reclass lets us change a unit's class (Up to a cap that increases throughout the game for each class) inbetween battles. Different classes provide different stat growth rates, caps, and modified bases.



For example, changing Arran into a Dracoknight (promoted Peg. Knight, available to men) would effect his growths, but also his current stats in the way pictured on the top screen. He'd also lose access to Swords and gain access to Axes.

Reclass also lets us see a few new classes that weren't options in MU creation.



Bishops are promoted Curates, and in addition to Staves they can use Tomes. They have less Magic than Sages, promoted Mages, but more Res. In some FE games, they can use Light Magic. This is not one of those.



We've already seen Hunters, but we can make them now. They gain Swords on promotion.



Pirates have garbage Skill, but good Str. and Speed. They only use Axes, even on promotion.



Dark Mages sacrifice some of the offensive power of Mages to gain more defensive stats. They also gain Staves on Promotion.

Reclassing is something you can either totally ignore or completely break the game with. I'm not very good at it, so I'll be taking thread suggestions on who to reclass and to what. I want to keep everyone in their base classes for this first update though, just to show the way the first chapter is "meant" to look, like in the original. Then all bets are off. (Except making everyone Curates. Not happening.)



NOT HAPPENING



Now for the Armory.



This guy will sell us things for Gold, which can be earned by selling items or as a gift from Villages (more on those later).



He only carries the most basic of each weapon type, but other shops in the maps can help make up for that.



Sell is fairly self explanatory, so let's go to Forge.



The Forge lets you edit the Name and stats of a weapon. MT is Might, or damage it does, Hit is hit rate, and Crit is bonus to getting critical hits. You can raise or lower these, but the more changes, the more it costs. I'll be taking suggestions for forged weapons too.

Nobody is getting a lance named "DONGS".



Now for what I know you've all been waiting for. The chatting.

This is a special kind of Base Conversation. Since we've used Ryan in a certain amount of maps with Steve, he gets a conversation with her. There are 3 of them in total. Every single character has 3 of these with Steve, but some characters have them with others. These aren't super well explained, so I'm not sure of all the possible combinations.

This is one of two things character relationships effect. The other I'll go into later, and it has gameplay based implications.

Bottom to Top, as usual:

Ryan/Steve 1: Siblings





He keeps calling him "Brother". I don't know if that's a Japanese language thing, or if Ryan talks like Liquid Snake all the time.











Maybe if I ignore the blink animation it will leave me be.











Ryan's not super interesting.



DON'T USE JEIGAN





"I just had the most exciting conversation with Ryan about inferior genes!"





He was fighting one year ago. Social Security has finally kicked in for Jagen.







_cowlick



Cowlick



COWLICK







I love how this game has the traditional "noob trap" character come out and say "Look, don't use me too much or you're fucked."







There's more to his comment here than it seems, but my lips are sealed.





Son Of The Boss





Steve continues to have no clue what happened literally a year ago.







General Lorenz was not the most steadfast of soldiers. Marth (or Caeda) chatted with him once and he just let them right into the palace.



Big Boss? Oh, no wonder, Marth was probably carrying a dead bird or some shit.











Pictured: Marth's naivety about to cost him.



Pictured: Marth's naivety costing him.



Well, hopefully that doesn't go too badly. We will calmly resolve this misunderstanding next time.