Part 1: The Warrior of Fiana

As ages passed and the 12 Crusaders became the talk of legends, a great rebellion arose and spread throughout the Land of Judgral.



While on the march through the Yied Desert, Cuan and Ethlin are suddenly attacked by the Thracian army and die far from their homeland. (Cuan and Ethin were the brother in law and the sister of the protagonist of Fire Emblem 4 respectively. Their deaths occurred near the end of 4's first half.)



Though Kind Lenster fights valiantly while grieving the loss of his sons he, too, meets a bitter end betrayed by his allies the Conote army.



The entire army of Thracia seizes upon this chance and assaults Lenster's castle.



As Lenster's army fights bravely in the face of merciless defeat one young knight, Fin, escapes with Prince Leaf, Lenster's infant grandson. (Fin and Leaf were fairly important playable characters from 4)



As Leaf gazes up at the castle cradles in Fin's arms, can he even begin to understand the terrible sight that meets his eyes?

(This entire opening was always in English. Fire Emblem games have a tendency to start with an English opening, and this time they managed to do a pretty good job.)





After escaping with his life from the collapsing Lenster Castle, Leaf, together with his loyal knight Fin and his daughter Nanna, proceeded to defeat the Thracian forces and take control of Northern Thracia.











and she led a band of fighters to protect the neighboring villages from bandit attacks. Eyvel gave Leaf and his comrades a warm welcome, and Leaf gradually grew up among other youths who resided in Fiana.

And now, in the Gran year 776...

---




We've searched the village, but the prince is nowhere to be found.
You fool! We don't have much time. I know that the prince is here. Round up the villagers and make them talk! We need to find him!
Yes, we are already doing that, my lord. But the villagers say that he isn't here. He apparently left with the Fiana Militia to go save some village from a pirate attack.
Fiana Militia? What is that?
This village was originally the headquarters of a large group of brigands. A little over a decade ago, a traveling mercenary named Eyvel cleared out the bandits and took over the village. She then established a militia to protect the nearby villages from bandit attacks. Apparently she's quite skilled with her sword...
Hmm... She could be a problem.
No worries, my lord. We have already taken Eyvel's daughter hostage. We've also captured the daughter of Finn, the knight defending the prince. They'll have no choice but to give in to us now.
Well, not bad, for you. Good, I shall take the girls back to Manster with me. You stay here and wait for the rebels. Make sure the capture the prince when he returns!
Yes, my lord. Someone! Bring the girls here.



What is your name, girl?
Hmph...
Ha, stoutness is cute as well. And the other one... Ah, so you're Finn's daughter. I understand your mother is a princess from Nodion. I see you haven't lost your dignity living in a place like this.
......

Fire Emblem's Japan's love affair with the ellipse continues.

Well, I've gotten some pleasant surprises to take home with me. Wiseman, I will now be returning to Manster. I trust you can handle the rest.
Yes, my lord.



That's a lot of troops for the first mission.

---



What's happening? Something's wrong...
I'll go take a look, Lady Eyvel. Please wait here.



Lady Eyvel, the village is filled with Imperial troops. It looks like they attacked while we were gone...
What? Damn, those bastards! Lady Eyvel, let's go!
Calm down, Othin. If we just run in without thinking, we'll just get beaten down.
Why're you so calm, Havan!? Our village is being attacked!
No, Havan is right. Calm yourself, Othin. Lord Leaf, it looks like the Empire has sought us out. Please make your escape while we distract the Imperial troops. Fin, take care of him...
Eyvel! Nanna is still in the village. I can't just leave her and run.
I will ensure her safety. Don't worry.
No, that's not it... I've chosen not to run any more.
Fin, what about you? Are you going allow Lord Leaf to get himself in danger?
Leaf is already 15 years old. He is old enough to make his own decisions. As his servant, I will respect his judgment and follow his commands.
15... Well, we did bring him with us to defeat the pirates. Fine, If Fin says so, it's all right with me.
Well, are we done? Let's hurry up and go kick their asses!
Yes. But be careful. Although they are Imperial troops, the lower-ranking ones are civilians forced into the army. If you can, don't kill them, take their weapons and let them escape. Understood?

It's not really out of mercy, we just really, really need weapons.

But we can hurt them until they submit to us, right? They'll kill us if we don't.
Yes, but don't overdo it, all right? Especially you, Othin.
Come on, don't you trust me, Lady Eyvel?
All right, let's go. Show them the Fiana Militia's strength!

---

(Player Phase)
(Enemy Phase)



And finally, the talking is over and we can start playing the game. There's around 10 of them and only 5 of us, but despite the uneven odds, this really isn't a hard chapter. The game gives us a little bit of leeway before heaping on the difficulty and so we shouldn't lose unless we make some really poor decisions. For the sake of anyone who hasn't played a Fire Emblem game before, I've prepared a brief primer on the basic mechanics of the game. Anyone who is familiar with the series can skip it, anything unique to 5 will be explained separately.

Fire Emblem Primer

The basic flow of combat in FE is pretty simple. First up comes the Player Phase. During the Player Phase, each of your characters can move and then perform an action (for most units it has to be in that order.) Some actions (like trading between characters) can be done in the same turn as other small actions, but more important actions (like attacking) will automatically end your turn. Once all your characters take action, or you choose to end your turn, the enemy phase comes. The enemy phase is exactly the same as the player's, just, y'know, controlled by the enemy.

Attacking another unit has three parts to it. First, the attacker attacks, then the defender counter attacks (if they can), and lastly, if either is eligible, they get a second attack. In combat, sword beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords. A unit with an advantage according that that triangle gets an small damage and accuracy boost, a unit at a disadvantage gets the opposite.

There are no generic units in Fire Emblem. All characters are unique, and are sorted into various classes that determine what weapons they can use and give a general template for what they will excel at. Tying into this, if a character dies, they die forever.

Primer over



For some strange reason, no enemies start in range, and so I send Othin east to the nearby village, everyone else up, and end by making a defensive line with Fin and Leaf.



On the enemy phase, a brave enemy soldier charges into the midst of my forces and attacks Leaf. He deals 6 damage, while Leaf does 12 on the counter attack. No other enemy moves, leaving the brave soldier to his inevitable death.



Leaf circles around the soldier and initiates his attack. Since the translation patch is so wonderfully glitchy, I feel I should explain what these numbers mean. LV and HP are self-explanatory, Swa is supposed to be Attack, Danc is Defense (damage done being Atk-Def), Ar is accuracy (in percent), and the last two are critical chance and attack speed. An attack speed of at least 4 greater then your enemy's allows you to double attack them. Also, the Manster soldier is not short (well he might be but that's not what the game is telling us), but rather is equipped with a short lance.



Success! The first of many, many (enemy) casualties

Now that the first battle is over, it might be a good idea to go over the numbers behind why we won instead of dying horribly.



Here we have Leaf's stats. From top to bottom they are:

HP: Run out and you die.
Str: Affects damage done.
Mag: Affects damage done magically, doubles as defense against magic. This double use is a departure from series tradition.
Skill: Affects accuracy.
Speed: The most important stat. Gives evasion, and is the main contributor to attack speed.
Luck: A little bit of everything. Increases hit, evasion and critical evade. Leaf's getting a bonus to it from his weapon.
Def: Reduces physical damage taken.
Build: Has a couple of functions I'll discuss as they become relevant. Most importantly, attack speed is based on build, given by Speed-(Weapon Weight-Build) taken as 0 if negative.

To the right is Leaf's inventory, with numbers representing each items current durability/max durability. Of particular note is his Light Sword, not only does it have a magic based ranged attack, but it also gives him +10 luck. Under that he has an iron sword; iron weapons are generic low strength/weight, high accuracy/durability weapons.

As we can see, Leaf's stats are fairly low, although in his defense he's not a very high level. (Although this sure as hell doesn't mean he's any good.)



Here we see the rest of Leaf's stats. The star represents a 5% chance of Leaf being allowed to take two turns, the C represents a C rank in swords, limiting the caliber swords he can equip (weapon rank gradually increases as a character fights), the 6 is his movement range, and the little icon his double skill, which gives him a attack speed % of hitting twice in one attack. Useful, but not unless you have the stats to make it count.

Let's take a look at the rest of the gang.



Othin's a really good unit, he's got good stats for his level and whole lot else going for him too. Class-wise Othin is a fighter, which are axe wielding infantry units. Skill wise he has wrath, which guarantees a critical hit on a counter attack. Yup. For the record, criticals double attack before the enemy's defense is applied.



Havan is a lot like Othin. He's another fighter with good starting stats, and beyond the stats differences shown, only really differs from Othin due to having the ambush skill instead of wrath. Ambush gives Havan the first attack in all battles.



Fin is a lance knight, knights being the catch all name for mounted units. Fin's a fairly useful, well-rounded character. His prayer skill is immensely useful, giving him a luck x 3% chance of being untouchable by would-be lethal attacks. Also of particular note is that fact that he's got 1 Leadership star, giving every unit on our side 3 extra evade and accuracy. Lastly, his Brave Lance allows him to hit twice per attack in combat, as well as giving a +10 bonus to luck. Both of these attributes are very useful.



Eyvel blows the rest of our team out of the water. This doesn't actually mean she's good, as she's actually not level 12, but level 12 second tier. Characters can move up to the second tier of classes when they hit level 10 (with the max level being 20), and so she's pretty much level 22-32. Right now she's a crutch character who shouldn't be overused. Her class, swordmasters, are agile sword wielding infantry units. She brings two leaderships stars to the table as well.

Alright, that's enough of that. Let's get back to the action.



That will do nicely. Othin takes out the soldier guarding the village he's headed for.



To end my turn, I have Fin and Havan move up and make a defensive line. On the enemy phase, a soldier misses Havan with a javelin (a ranged lance), and an archer joins the fun but misses too. A third soldier approaches, but doesn't have a javelin to attack with.

The player phase starts with two allied units appearing in the top left corner.

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Following this, a third unit joins them.



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Let's take a look at our new allies.



Another crutch character. Dagda's overleveled (he's in his 2nd tier, just like Eyvel), and overusing him will just take experience away from units who need it more. Warrior are infantry units who can use both bows and axes.



An archer, Tanya attacks with bows, which can only attack units two spaces away. I'm not a fan of archers, and Tanya herself is pretty bad. She's frail and not that strong, with her speed being her greatest asset. She unfortunately has no skills.



What the hell Marty? That's terrible, you're terrible. A 0 in almost any stat would be unacceptable, a 0 in speed especially so. Without speed, he'll be double attacked by anybody who looks at him funny, and he won't stand a chance of dodging either. Marty is a brigand, a class that until 5 was reserved for generic early game enemy mooks. The only interesting thing about brigands is that they can torch villages, rendering them unvisitable. Of course, Marty is on our side, and can't do that. Like I said, he's terrible. (Brigands become Warriors upon promoting to the 2nd class tier.)



Fin moves up and attempts to capture the nearby enemy soldier. Characters with higher builds (or a horse) than an enemy can attack via the catch command, capturing the enemy if they succeed in "killing" them, and allowing you to loot their inventory. Any unit using catch incurs ridiculous stat penalties for the fight (all stats but build, luck and HP are halved), so Fin and his Brave Lance is probably the best choice for capturing at this point. As well, so long as an enemy is captured, their carrier suffers the aforementioned stat penalties. Once released, the enemy is treated as dead. Fin succeeds in capturing the enemy, at which point Eyvel loots his inventory, and Dadga both takes him from Fin, and releases him. As our reward we claim his javelin, and a vulnerary, which fully heals a character. The swap and release deal I did with Dagda is something I'll be doing a lot of, it's a handy technique to avoid the stat penalties that come with carrying a captured enemy.



Havan kills the soldier, and Leaf weakens the archer. Meanwhile, Othin visits the village.



Ha, haven't fixed that foul mouth of yours, have you, kid? Well anyway, here. This is what you came for, right?
Yeah, thanks! I don't feel right unless I fight with this axe.
Stupid kid. I've never heard of someone forgetting his weapons to a battle.
Hey, I told you I don't need the lectures.
Hmph. Well, what're you waiting for? Go and help Lady Eyvel!
Yeah, I'm going!

Othin gets the Pugi for visiting the village. The Pugi is amazing, it can attack from a range, has a 30% critical chance, and is stronger than Othin's iron axe. It's also one of many character specific weapons, as only Othin is able to equip it. Pretty much any special weapon that comes with a character is going to be unique to them, Fin's Brave Lance is another example.



The weakened archer misses Havan, and soldier approaches my forces.



The soldier is captured by Fin, the archer is killed by Leaf, the archer on the village is captured by Havan and then swapped and dropped by Dagda. Eveyl takes the soldier from Fin and accidentally releases him without taking his inventory. I think it's about time I come clean and mention that I'm not some SRPG guru and will be making a lot of stupid mistakes.



On the enemy phase, an archer and a soldier approach my forces. Havan kills the archer...



Well this bodes will. Each stat has a chance of going up by one on a level up, and this time around, the RNG has deigned to give us nothing.



Hey, get down from there Leaf, you'll hurt yourself! Leaf takes out the enemy soldier with his ridiculously showy critical. He levels up from this, getting a mediocre (+1HP, +1 SKL, +1 LCK). Only one stat shows at a time on the level up window, making full level up screens regrettably impossible.

With both villages clear of troops, I have Eyvel and Dagda visit them.



Here, take this vulnerary. It's all right, it's nothing compared to what Lady Eyvel has done for us.

---



We have no choice but to capture soldiers and grab their weapons. See, I took this from an unsuspecting imperial soldier while he was sleeping. Go ahead take it. If you don't need it, you could sell it at a shop for a decent sum.

We get an iron sword from the old man.



A javelin does 4 damage to Havan.



Come player phase Havan kills it's owner and Leaf and Fin go north. A slip of my finger dismounts Fin; dismounted he suffers minor stat penalties and wields swords, not lances.



Doesn't seem to stop him from murdering though.



Leaf's doing okay for himself too. (The soldier who attacked him had already been weakened by Leaf's ranged attack.)

Now the only enemies left alive are the soldiers on the eastern village and the northwest village, as well as the boss.





Leaf uses his psychedelic ranged attack to take the northwest, Havan takes the east, and Fin gets back on his horse. With every enemy but the boss dead, we can start taking care of any loose ends. First, Leaf and Havan visit the villages they liberated.



Oh, take this magic ring. Remember, just holding it is useless, you have to use it to take advantage of it's powers.

She gives us a life ring, a consumable that increases a character's max HP by 7. Fantastic for low durability, but otherwise useful, characters.

---



It's a nice axe, isn't it? I got it from a strange old lady who came out of the lake in the mountain. But I can't really use it, so take it.

We get a Brave Axe, which is the same deal as the Brave Lance, although it lacks the luck bonus. It's also only usable by Havan. Anyone can use it, but it's gonna stay on Havan for a while anyways. Othin's already got the Pugi, he doesn't need more firepower.

---

Following this, Dadga talks to Eveyl.

Dagda!? You came.
Ah, Eyvel. I'm glad you're safe. Still... What business does the Empire have all the way out here? That kid...?
Yes... That boy is actually the heir to now demised Kingdom of Lenster. I was hiding him from his pursuers. I'm sorry I kept it from you...
I thought it was something like that. But no matter, I don't mind as long as I can fight against the Empire.

---

Next up is Tanya and Othin,

Tanya? What the hell are you doing out here?
: Othin!? Can't you see? I came to help you guys out.
Help us out, eh? Well, we're not so desperate as to ask for help from a kid. Now off you go.
: Who're you calling a kid!? You're the kid! Fine, I'm going. I never wanted to come here anyway. Hmph

That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in our little militia.

---

Now that everything is taken care of, all that's left to do is take care of Wiseman.



Wiseman is a Sword Armor, Armor units being high defense, low speed tanks. Because of that, there's nothing impressive here beyond his 12 defense. However, these stats don't tell the whole story. The terrain Wiseman is on gives him a +10 bonus to defense, as well as hp regen and some avoid.



In some twisted mirror of the rest of the game, it turns out Leaf is our best tool for the job. It came up briefly that his ranged attack is magic based, and Wiseman has no magic to defend with or ranged attack to counter with. He's still a pretty damn mediocre tool though, seeing as he misses Wiseman over 5 times. While this was going on, Leaf leveled up, netting nothing but HP. Yup.



Finally Wiseman dies, giving Leaf another level, in this case a much more adequate +1 HP, +1 SKL, +1 SPD. Not great, but at this point I'll take it, speed especially.



Leaf seizes the structure, ending the first map of the game.

---







They've been taken as hostages. It's exactly what that Reidric would think of doing...
Damn... Eyvel, let's go! We have to rescue them.
But Lord Leaf...
Eyvel, they were captured in my place. I'm not a child any more. I don't want to sacrfice anyone any more for my own safety!
...Very well. We will leave tomorrow morning. It will be a tough journey... Please make sure you get your rest.

---

Next time on Thracia 776: Obligatory pirates.

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New Recruits:

Leaf:



Hp: 70% Spd: 40%
Str: 35% Lck: 40%
Mag: 10% Def: 25%
Skl: 35% Bld: 15%

Weapon Ranks: C (swords) Movement stars: 1 Skills: Double

The percents above are Leaf's growth rates, the chance of each stat going up by one upon leveling up. Leaf's are all pretty mediocre... wait a minute I missed one growth.

Mov: 3%

Yes that's right, move actually has a tiny percent chance of increasing upon a level. It's not really something you can plan on, but it's always fun when you get lucky and end up with a swordmaster with 9 move.

Anyways, getting back to Leaf, Leaf's growths are all middle of the road. On top of this is bases are pretty low, and he doesn't have any particularly useful skills. All this wouldn't make him terrible, just mediocre, if it weren't for the fact that his promotion to 2nd tier is linked to the plot, and comes fairly late in the game. By the time he finally does promote, he'll be very weak compared to the rest of your characters.

---

Othin:



Hp: 85% Spd: 35%
Str: 30% Lck: 55%
Mag: 5% Def: 25%
Skl: 25% Bld: 25%
Mov: 2%

Weapon Ranks: E (axes) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Wrath

Funnily enough, Othin's growths are probably worse than Leaf's. Despite this, he's easily one of the best characters in the game. Why? Wrath. I didn't emphasize it that much during the update, but wrath is ridiculous. To restate what it does, it guarantees a critical on a counter attack. Guarantees. If an enemy attacks Othin on the enemy phase, he crits them. Who needs good growths when you've got that?

---

Havan



Hp: 80% Spd:30%
Str: 40% Lck:30%
Mag: 5% Def:30%
Skl: 20% Bld:30%
Mov: 2%

Weapon Ranks: D (axes) Movement stars:0 Skills: Ambush

Although he's not quite as good as Othin, Havan's still a pretty useful unit. Ambush goes together great with his Brave Axe (letting him hit the enemy twice before they even get to attack), 30% build helps him use strong, heavy weapons without speed penalties, and 30% defense is pretty solid.

---

Fin:



Hp: 60% Spd: 35%
Str: 35% Lck: 45%
Mag: 5% Def: 30%
Skl: 30% Bld: 10%
Mov: 1%

Weapon Ranks:B (lances), D (swords, dismounted only) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Prayer

Fin's a highly useful unit with well rounded stats. It really can't be understated how useful the Brave Lance is, and how much more useful it makes Fin. As well, Fin is pretty damn sturdy, he's got good defense, and with 20 luck and a Brave Lance, he can have a 90% chance of being impossible to kill to due prayer.

---

Eyvel:



Hp: 30% Spd: 10%
Str: 15% Lck: 25%
Mag: 10% Def: 5%
Skl: 15% Bld: 5%
Mov: 1%

Weapon Ranks: A (swords) Movement stars: 2 Skills: Double

Eveyl falls into an old Fire Emblem archtype knows as a Jeigan, she starts over leveled, but has terrible growths. She can be useful as a crutch early game, but she has little long-term viability as a unit.

---

Tanya:



Hp: 60% Spd: 70%
Str: 35% Lck: 60%
Mag: 15% Def: 15%
Skl: 55% Bld: 5%
Mov: 2%

Weapon Ranks: E (bows) Movement stars: 0 Skills: None

Tanya's probably got the best growths of any character we've seen so far, but she's unfortunately not as good as that may suggest. Fundamentally, archers aren't very good units, there are plenty of melee weapons that can attack at a 1-2 range, but archers are stuck only being able to do anything on the player phase, when the majority of combat goes on during the enemy phase. She also doesn't have any skills, which is a shame. That said, her growths are actually a good deal better than I remember, and even if she won't be fantastic, I'm sure she could be usable.

---

Dagda:



Hp: 15% Spd: 10%
Str: 10% Lck: 30%
Mag: 5% Def: 5%
Skl: 10% Bld: 5%
Mov: 1%

Weapon Ranks: A (axes), E (bows) Movement stars: 0 Skills: Charge

There's nothing to say about Dagda that I didn't already say about Eveyl. Don't use him. (Charge initiates a second round of combat is your attack speed and HP are greater than the enemy's, it's a useful skill, although sometimes on the enemy phase you just want an enemy to survive and create a bottleneck.)

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Marty:



Hp: 90% Spd: 15%
Str: 15% Lck: 50%
Mag: 5% Def: 40%
Skl: 10% Bld: 75%
Mov: 2%

Weapon Ranks: D (axes) Movement stars: 0 Skills: None

Marty is the AT&T of characters. Seriously though, his growths are just too damn lopsided to be workable. High defense means nothing if you can't dodge, double, hit, or hurt anything.

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Anyways, to shamefully steal an idea from Artix's thread, feel free to vote on how many times I'll end up resetting the game. Winner will get some form of forums update, I imagine.