Part 40: Chapter 10B Hard Mode

Yeah, that entire last update was brought to you buy The Bastion Soundtrack, which I had blasting the entire time from Chapter 5 onwards.

Anyway!

Chapter 10B: Sorry, I'm New At This


It took quite a bit of effort to get here, but at last we've arrived. 10B, hard mode style.


This is where I make a bit of a confession: I've never actually played the B Route before. As in ever. The first time I ever played this I just got the A route by chance, and every other time after I've taken the A route for Gonzales. My inexperience will come to light soon enough: let's just say you shouldn't expect the perfect performance you got in 11A.


Hero Dieck still isn't amazing, but he can hold his own.


Roy as well. It's really strange, having a competent Roy.


Alan, Lance and Zealot take off to the north to save the villages and escort Lilina to Gonzales.


Oh, and I figure I'd better give them a healer, so Ellen doubles back to join them. Everybody else goes east. Can you spot the flaw in my plan yet?


Where the hell were you in my actual playthrough, Lilina?


Ellen continues her slow crawl north.


Meanwhile we save some villages, kill some dudes, yeah.


This guy challenges Dieck to a steel blade-off.


There's a lot of subtlety in these animations you'd never catch unless you were really bad at taking screenshots like me.


Anyway, Dieck wins.


I don't fault his confusion: all four of them look identical to me.


Once again Alan dreams of being a Green Knight. I really don't mind: speed is speed.


Dieck and Rutger head up to start clearing the stragglers and opening that wall.


The rest hang back to wait for-


Wait wa-



But really,


There we go.


Now the kid sees something stranger still. Is anybody else recruitable?


Sure enough she finds another.

: She finds me.


But seriously now, see the problem? I thought Tate popped up in the NorthEAST corner, not the Northwest. Thany and Klein are both on the complete opposite side of the map. Welp.


Still, I've come too far to let it end like this. Thany begins her odyssey towards her sister.


Everybody else retreats in the vain hope that Thany's units won't suicide onto us.


But really, these animations


Anyway, get out.


You're definitely not MY Rutger, but you'll do.


Gonzales smash strange flyi-
Oh wait, Artix already used that joke.


I can't believe that worked.


There's one house to the northeast I haven't saved yet, so the bandit conga line beelines for it.


Not pictured: a group of cav reinforcements running up toward Roy and co. Klien's archers start dropping due to having the survival instincts of lemmings.





Anyway, Rutger won't kill these guys due to having no strength, so he makes a good tank here.


I pull some rescue shennanigans and get Tate's stupid ass out of there. That lone peg does not survive the ordeal, sadly.


Here's the paladin in that group, he has a silver lance.


Lance by comparison. Barring his +5 speed, Lance is about on par with this guy.


I saved that last village, so now the new bandit reinforcements are going south. Caught between a rock and a hard place.


Alan charges into the breech.


That's the third weird animation screencap I got by accident.


Right, now that that's mopped up Roy is going to beeline for the boss and end this.


Lance lays waste to the paladin.


He's richer for it.


Also nipping this in the bud right now.


Jesus, you're damn lucky you're so good in my main file. Otherwise I would not have gone through this shit.


The south is taken care of.


As is the north. All that's left is the boss.


This guy is such an abject joke.


Even Klien can smoke him.


Lou gets the finish.


Cool people don't look at their opponents.


I'm really going to be sad to see some of these units go. Lou is like 12 levels below my other Lou relatively speaking, and he's only down in RES and SPD, and up or tied in everything else. I mean damn.


Anyway, that wasn't the er... smoothest run, but it'll do. G'night, folks!