Part 51: UPDATE 46: Promises

Fun fact about Brionac: It has an auto-Sleep effect on anything it touches, like the Evil Blade, and it looks like a big old lobster claw.

Y'know, all this tossing-about of epic spears gets an LPer to thinking.



Meet Fel. As I'm sure you're aware, I've been levelling her and other female frontliners up pretty much exclusively as Dragon Masters due to their excellent stat gains, but the problem is that their weapon choices are pretty terrible and their armor isn't great. But Fel has gained 31 levels as a Dragon Tamer / Master and we're coming up on the end of the game -- maybe it's about time to switch her over to Freya. Their stat gains aren't as good, but their weapons and armor are definitely better.



There we go. Shockingly, Freya Fel's physical defense is actually just barely lower than it had been as a Dragon Master, but she also gained some substantial MDEF and went from 48 non-elemental attack to 54 Virtue-element attack. Recall that even with the Brionac, Leia (who's been levelling up all game as the equivalent of a Valk/Freya) has an attack of 52. I'm sure at this point my choices speak for themselves.



Dagda's Hammer is better than either Brionac or the Evil Blade in that it inflicts Paralysis rather than Sleep, but it's still not as good as Ji'ygla's Bow or however that was spelled.



Everyone else with a big hammer gets bumped up to match Asnabel -- the Rune Axe is freed up for Swift, which frees up the Yggdrasil for Catsworth. Not bad.



Let me just toss some Epic Armor onto Leia and Ankiseth...



...and it's time to win ourselves a kingdom. My good goon sirs: Tonight, the fate of Palatinus is decided for good.

Update 46: Promises



I got a problem -- can you relate? I got a woman callin' love hate



We open to find Yumil standing around in the middle of the throne room and Procus hauling ass up to him in a most undignified and unkingly manner.



King Busybottom has kind of a point here. If Yumil's been sitting on a Forbidden Spell this whole time, it would have been maybe a pretty good idea for him to have cast it BEFORE I took all of Latium and started sieging Winnea.

: "...Would you mind keeping quiet for awhile? I can't cast it now. Freddie is coming. But... Why are you here? You don't belong here any longer."

: "What are you saying, Yumil!? Use the spell! Finish this..."



Note: Yumil's title. Note: Procus's lack thereof.

: "...Goodbye.... Father..."



Uh oh. Last time Yumil got the firey turquoises, strong men died screaming.








That, uh

Wow.

Really hoping he can't cast that more than once per battle

Well, that's one less king I'm gonna have to kill after this mission.

(alternate-playthrough spoilers)  No seriously, it really is. Procus is a map boss in low-CF playthroughs. We'd gain a boss fight, but we'd lose this awesome cutscene. It's kind of a wash. 



"except a sufficiently badass blue-haired motherfucker and his gang of murder engines"

Speaking of which!



Yes, yes, I know, Hugo

: "...Don't worry. I've taken the liberty of disbanding all legions."

: "Thank you, Hugo."

Freddie's nicer than me. I'd thank you too if I didn't know you were just gonna put them back afterward.

: "Do not worry. ...Let's evaluate the current situation. This is our plan for sieging the castle."



: "We must liberate the castle, and prevent the use of the ultimate power. This is your first time sieging a castle of this size, you can expect it to be similar to taking Fort Romulus. Fort Romulus was tiny compared to Castle Winnea. There are many castle walls, and I'm sure there will be guards on watch. We must pick a route and attack immediately. If we don't make a detailed plan, time will be wasted and our men will tire quickly, making them easy targets. As in Romulus, there are no strongholds to be liberated. Your men can find healing, but cannot regroup."

Wow, such concentrated poor translation. I haven't seen anything like it before in this game. Note, though, that this is for whatever reason the first time Hugo didn't say "Let's get started" when we got started! No troop position information this time, either, just a map overview and an "oh btw this place is big and i guess there are enemies there and stuff." Y'know, Winnea suffers from the same problem many video-game cities do in that it's just plain too small, it looks like a village with a castle in it. Furthermore



Alright, alright! Jeez, this damn LP's gonna be at LEAST 50 updates long, I'm allowed an occasional rant if I want one, JERK.



As before, we gotta take this castle by 7 pm sharp, since I guess that's when the Forbidden Spell is scheduled to be cast and Yumil's a stickler for tightly-kept schedules.



And we're underway at Winnea. First things first, we have a wall and we have a hawkman unit. Let's just let things take their natural course, shall we?



Upon crossing the wall, Sheen takes these two patrolling units by surprise.



Hm. Ferdinando's not looking too bad. Well, I estimate that exactly one of these guys is due for a face full of hawkman in about a second.



And there it is. Keeping Sheen from certain watery peril after knocking off Velner is easy enough with this wall here -- it works both ways!



While he cools his heels, it's about time I commenced the conventional warfare. First to arrive at a gate is a group I sent to the western wall.



The gate falls so quickly I imagine the actual process involved knocking really loudly, and on the other side Troi finds Ferdinando's unit from before, with a couple of new friends!



Hmm. My anti-Dahaka unit is huddling back on the outside of a wall back there, can we pick this up in a second? Also those Pumpkinheads aren't looking too great since all my Priest units are either guarding my pavilion or in the other attack group.



Oh, right, there's another attack group. Rather than counting all my chickens in one basket I sent another set of units down to the southeast to charge the central gate. They're not hitting resistance as stiff as Group North is -- that Archmage isn't moving anytime soon, but the Black Knight and the Saturos are.



I gotta say, I don't think there have been any enemy units in this mission so far that have made me lose faith in the process of game design, although none of them are unassailably perfect either. Also, Jank and Fiddach are both really funny names. That's really important to consider.



Hope you considered it REALLY FAST because they're both dead now.



The Outer Garden is mine and Army Group South is allowed to set a spell! Let's look back to the North while they admire the beautiful shrubbery and whatnot.



I've pulled back all of my units a little ways to try to force a fight between Mulder and Sheen. Astoundingly, it worked -- Ferdinando is still locked in his neverending patrol or he'd have gone first.



For some reason, Jihad is not working at ALL against these dragons. I'm not really sure why, but at least hitting stuff really hard with axes is as effective as ever.



GodDAMN Pumpkinheads never do get any easier, do they?



Well, at least this one's dead now -- that means if I can kill or petrify that Witch, I won't have to worry about Showers in subsequent battles because they'll probably be facing the other way.



Eh. Moot point. (Why YES, I did have to switch to Glide64 for this battle! Good job noticing!)



While this was all going on, Group South was sort of ambushed but not really by Isabella and her pets. I'm assuming they live in that house and slept through the entire battle up to this point. I don't blame her, we started at like 7 AM.



There were a couple of close calls, but with timely healing and proper application of Battle Strategy Katreda was able to take care of them all at once -- not bad considering this unit has barely changed since I made it.



Considering the threat in the south dealt with, I send Group North back inside their Gate, to finally deal with Ferdinando who has been pacing back and forth absently this entire time. TIME FOR AN EPIC SHOWDOWN!!!



Oh, he's dead already. Hm. Well, Troi's still due for some heavy damage later, I guess.



In the meantime I haven't shown off Tempest yet -- Bluemage has it now, reppin' Drakonite in Troi's unit. Let's see what it looks like.



Okay so we've got some clouds converging into a vortex-looking tornado dealie. Yes, very storm-themed.



Now it's... raining? Okay I guess that's KIND of scary.



WHOA. Okay, yeah, that'll do.



With Ferdinando's defeat, the Recess Area is mine! Army Group North settles in by the seesaws for a game of tag.



I got so distracted by all that that I got completely blindsided by this happening in the east. I sent Leia over there for completion's sake, and she met Chebon while I wasn't looking. I wasn't expecting her to get in a fight so soon and her HP's pretty low, but this unit's got basically no offense.



Leia had to guard both of Chebon's actual attacks in a row, but she was badass enough to handle the task, and she survived long enough to get some healing and deal the killing blow herself!



As she's making her way up the eastern flank on her TOP SECRET COMMANDO MISSION and as Army Group North settles into its fourth game of dodgeball, Army Group South starts to contemplate breaking in through that second wall. It's guarded by Dan the Archmage.



Whoops, forgot to put Ozzie back in the back row! Well uh there are Hawkmen in this unit you see so it was totally on purpose haha yes of course. The Heat-Tex is a Fire-flavored version of the Feather Suit. Yeah the name confuses me too.



Ankiseth is the only guy in Army Group North who doesn't have enough near-mortal wounds to require him to sit on that garden for AT LEAST an hour, so it falls to him to make some more headway in the meantime. More Wind Armor is always appreciated!



The local interior wall guard is a fellow named Duke. Ankiseth and TurosKensei critted him once each. No more Duke.



He dropped a Breidablick. Let's move on, shall we?



HEEEEEERE'S SHEENY



Oh, right, there's also a THIRD interior gate, all the way over here on the East. If you're spergy enough to send a unit over here like I did, for no apparent gain, you will meet this unit, commanded by Dude the Paladin. I'd make a joke about that name but I think I've already made that same Big Lebowski reference like twice. It's been a long LP.



Well at any rate Leia killed him and kicked in his door too.



...Eh, what the hell, go open THAT door too. I like knocking down gates.



BOOOOOOOOOM



Inside the inner doors, Group South are the only ones to immediately see anything, namely these two patrolling Cataphract units.



I keep on looking at Carmine's formation and expecting the Saturos to be the leader. They're usually so symmetrical!



Well Katreda's unit isn't positioned correctly to take out an enemy leader in that corner and I was too lazy to switch it, so instead let's see another Pedra.



Water is represented in Pedra form by the direwolves of the north! Yeah they didn't actually kill anything else, but hey, one less pedra I'll have to show off later.



Two more units came out of the woodwork here -- a Dragon Master and a Sorceress. Man, all these Venerable Dragons have been dealing me all KINDS of crazy damage, not looking forward to fighting another one...



...

Okay, Winnea disappoints me for the first time with these two blasts from the past. A baby dragon? Really? In a unit led by a Sorceress? What is this, the Prologue?



Get the hell out of my sight, both of you.



You too, Carmine. You had your chance.



It is at about this point that I realized I was gonna have to make some sacrifices in the name of HIGH DRAMA. You see, I'd been planning to just leave Freddie as HQ guard since he's so ridiculously high-level after his little Pedra adventure, but as I'm sure you all know by now who this area's boss must be, I really have no excuse not to have him fight the final battle.



So I had Sheen use his Quit Gate. That freed up a spot for me to dispatch Hector to act as a new HQ guard just in case, and Freddie marched off to war. This is his revolution, it wouldn't do for this job to fall to anyone else!



While he's taking his sweet time getting into the city, I've got to finish breaking into that castle, though. My next obstacle is a Daemon named Droite. Y'know, this is something like the second or third Daemon we've seen all game, would it have killed them to give him a better unit?



See Undead; apply Europea; bust down gate; repeat.



uh

Shion

I think your formation's backward or something



Well okay then, if you insist!



Christ, Hugo, it's only 13:00, we've got like six hours.



I guess we don't have any particular reason to put this off any longer, though. Of COURSE our boss for tonight is Yumil. How could it not be? He's only got two Knights of Danika left, and they're both right in there with him. (alternate playthrough spoilers)  Adding to the epicness of coming here in a low-CF run, after Evil Freddie kills Procus he must take on Yumil with all four Knights of Danika backing him up. That's the tradeoff from Latium's bosses being so much more boring. 

Well, nothing for it now. Let's go end the war.



: "I knew you could make it, Freddie... I gained the ultimate power. I will change this world with my own hands. I have nothing to fear. There's no need to fear Lodis, either. I will rule both humans and the denizens of the netherworld. ...I will become the sovereign of this world. Nobody was able to achieve it... until now."

Well, if nothing else, gaining omnipotent power over men and demons sure has done remarkable things for Yumil's self-esteem.



: "I will reign over the entire world. And you will be my knight!"

okayyyyy that's officially weird now

: "Ultimate power? Yumil, you've succumbed to the darkness...?"

: "In the legend, the Progenitor didn't acquire the power of darkness. That was the ultimate power, the same power that I have gained... With this, I will accomplish my goal!"

okay you had a really good evil monologue going up until that last sentence there, that was like a form letter or an affirmation or something

: "To invoke the spell... To eliminate all who stand in your way... Is that really your goal?"

: "Indeed. Whoever interferes with my plan will be killed. But because you were here... because you were coming to me, I didn't cast it. I can go on, now that you're here... I don't need anything else."

"unless you took six hours longer to get here, then boy howdy was i gonna cast the SHIT out of that thing, i ain't got all day"

: "I will cast the forbidden spell, and everything will come to naught. ...Freddie, you will help me, right?"

Dude, we go WAY back, but the least you coulda done was ASK me whether I'd help you perform a demonic ritual merging this world and the netherworld, making assumptions like that is NOT COOL. <>

: "...No!! I can't let you do that!!"

: "Why? ...Why do you say such things to me? You raise your sword to me? You understand what I'm trying to do, don't you?"



oh dang, shit's real now

: "I won't forgive you, Freddie. No one... Not even you are allowed to defy me. ...No one defies me and lives!"



Along come the two Knights of Danika and we are officially underway.



The KoDs hit about as hard as they did LAST mission. There's two of them now, but they're still not so terrifying. Time for my counter attack now--



uh, wow

I really did not expect to kill him that fast. He didn't even get a turn! Hold up a second, let me take another go-round with Attack Strongest up so we can see what he does.



Meh. Looks like solo tier-2 combo magic. Amrius was scarier.



There we go. It ended up being more dramatic this way anyway!



Yumil's reward is as underwhelming as his boss fight was. All I can say is that BETTER not have been the final boss.

NEXT TIME ON OGRE BATTLE: The aftermath??? OR IS IT???