Part 57: Prep: En Gra-de!

Update 33: En Gra-de! (Prep)

So, Gra kinda sucks. This is a fact of the Fire Emblem universe. All they did was betray Altea in the intro to Shadow Dragon and try to kill Marth in the Prologue. Still, they exist, and since they exist to be assholes, we're going to have to make a quick detour to deal with them again.



So let's just take care of that before we go deal with Hardin.



Narrator: However, the Kingdom of Gra, ally to Archanea, stood in their path. Gra allied with Dolhr in the previous war; King Jiol fell in battle, and the kingdom was lost.

Gra was annexed to Altea at one point, but, by Emperor Hardin's order, it was returned to Archanea. Hardin found King Jiol's daughter, Princess Sheema, and allowed her to take the throne, providing support to Gra. Sheema received fanatical support from her people.
To them, Sheema was their only hope. The youths volunteered to become soldiers one after the other.

And then, happily moved out to exact revenge on Altea, their bitter enemy. However, their dreams were shattered...Before the fast approaching Altean elites, the Gra soldiers lost the will to fight
and started fleeing for their lives.

It's kind of funny that the game has the enemies suddenly acknowledge "Oh god, the player's army is just an unstoppable torrent of death after 17+ chapters at this point."



: The late king Jiol--our enemy in the last war--was a general himself.

: I see. An army with strong defenses...

: In the past, yes. I hear that Gra's army now consists of new recruits. Hardly worthy enemies. Speaking of strong defenses, Steve...



Steve will never get Jagen's true respect.



This will be extra rude when we actually see the enemies.



Well, before we do anything, he's been waiting 3 chapters for this now.







Glad to have you back, Navbvba.



Also I'm sick of watching Sirius get doubled by everything.



Just wanted to show off that Luke has capped Strength. Malicia has also capped Speed, and I believe Barst has capped Skill. We're getting to the point where a lot of our units are going to be doing that.



Here's my basic load for this one. There are some locked doors, so Julian will come in handy. I could probably manage it without him because the enemies drop keys, but we'll see how it goes.



Also a village here is going to need defending, so Catria is going to need to be back to her highest movement potential.

Anyway, How's Everyone?










Ah yes, Wizard Gambling.











Again, not much to talk about. We've gotten pretty much all of Steve's conversations with our usual crew, so this screen is going to be pretty sparse more frequently.

We'll Always Have Jagen



: We will head to the palace, the hub of Archanea, to defeat Gharnef, who kidnapped Princess Elice, and to liberate Emperor Hardin from the Darksphere's control. According to Lord Gotoh, Gharnef is gathering high class clerics, Princess Elice among them... His objectives are unknown, but we must free them quickly.

Okay, that sounds good, then what is

: However, to reach the palace, we have to pass through the Kingdom of Gra, now Archanea's pawn...

Oh, yeah, these guys.

These Guys!



: But it seems Gra's soldiers have no will to fight, and are simply being coerced by Archanea's men.

: Then, if we defeat the Archanean soldiers, we might not need to battle those from Gra... I want to avoid pointless sacrifices as much as possible. Steve, convey that to everyone.

This is important.

: Yes, understood.

Now for the map itself.



This is the top right corner and if it looks familiar, again, you're probably remembering Shadow Dragon. Thankfully I think the original version of this map had Ballista, and this one doesn't, so that's...much better.



Top left corner has a village. There's a thief who will run for this, so it's a good idea to send someone to defend it, as it can be really tight if you just rush it with Marth. That's what Catria's for.



The boss is in the lower left here, but covered by a locked door.



I have no idea what the purpose of this building is. Just that it's annoying because this dick will snipe whoever's trying to walk along the northern wall.



Another locked area. There's treasure in here.



This thief is kind of a pain in the ass to get to, and he might get away. It's not a huge deal though, we have a fresh Nosferatu already from Katarina.

(Still want him though)



This second thief pretty much just exists to destroy the village. A Heal Staff isn't really anything special.

So, you might have already noticed a bit of a dichotomy between the enemies on this level.



Here's your average Archanea guy. Promoted, silver weapons, a threat.





These are the Gra soldiers. They are literally as weak as possible. This man has zero luck.

You cannot kill any of the Gra enemies if you want to recruit two characters on this map. This might bring back some horrible Katarina flashbacks, but don't worry, these guys don't attack. They'll just sit there, like the priests from Elrean's map, but even more useless. Basically, they're walls. Just walk around them.



We'll deal with Sheema and Gra next time around.