Part 10: We got wings, baby
Part 6: We got wings, babyWhen we last left off, I had cracked a very valuable piece of jewelry.
God damn, that is expensive. I'll have to remember not to actually abuse the item, because that's the price of five or six revives right now.
Into this dark cave we go.
God dammit you oversized McNugget, you could have told me that a while ago.
Sorry man, but you just can't cage the beast.
The hobgoblin is the only new enemy here, and it's not even impressive. It has 2 less attack than the dark dwarf in trade for two more defense. I can't guess why this is, but I'm not going to argue with less deadly enemies.
I didn't bother to circle the enemy clusters this time, since they're fairly obvious from the map. The three on the bottom left is the first wave, the middle two and the two on the top left come in at roughly the same time, and the three at the top center are the last bits.
Also, the cave is dark so you can only see a few squares away, but you can still check the minimap and the move the cursor around. It's an annoying fucking gimmick and I wish there were a way to remove it. Sadly, we're going to see it again.
It's annoyingly hard to properly give context for this fight because of the sight limitations. What just happened here was the bat casting Blaze 2 on Jaha, Chester, and May. The witch then followed up with a double attack to May, and then the hunter goblin off in the corner crit Slade, leaving four characters in low health. This is the closest I've come to real danger since the dark smoke fight.
I should probably apologize for the sparseness of screenshots in this fight, but the darkness does make nearly everything impossible to contextualize. Suffice it to say, the leader of this fight is pretty wimpy, and the only problem I run into is trying to protect Kiwi from this
Battle Report!
Level 12 2 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 15 1 HP/1 MP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 12 1 HP/2 MP/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 12 2 HP/2 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 13 1 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGIAfter the fight we pick one of these up
This is a special item that allows access to a special class for archers, May not included. It's funny that the archer promotion item is the first one you get, even though the archer is the last class you get out of those that can receive special promotions. The special promotion item for knights doesn't come until about 2/3rds of the way into the game, well past when you're “supposed” to promote.
The real kicker is that the archer special promotion really sucks, and Challenge Mode doesn't make much of a move to change this. I'm hocking the Silver Tank at the next town for extra cash.
It would not be until years later that I learn that “hirsute” is actually a word and not the sound of somebody sneezing. As we try to make our way through Polca and up to Peter's home town, a lot of explosions happen and a blind kid wanders in.
Yeah you go ahead and take care of that. It's not like I have a priest on super steroids traveling with me. Journey to the east and...
Good thing too, because all those potholes are 30% terrain effect. Since there aren't many adjacent to one another, this makes map control very easy.
You can probably group up the enemies by eye in this fight too. We've got a lot of newcomers, though none of them are too deadly.
The last guy is the leader, so if I kill him, everyone else is toast. Remember to kill him last.
I seem to be better at playing this game while I'm hungover. Probably because that's the only time I'm not drunk.
This is such a waste of MP, but I'm really starting to feel myself. This game hasn't presented me with a serious challenge in a few fights.
Another nice thing to know: Stairs always have 0% terrain effect. This is one of the easiest fights as far as controlling terrain is concerned.
Trying to bait that hobgoblin onto that top stair tile...
Ah poop. At least Slade is on a pothole, so he's relatively safe.
Or the hobgoblin could double attack and leave Slade at 1 HP. It's nice that even though Slade is very liable to die, I don't have to center my entire strategy around babysitting him anymore. I'm also thankful that I will never have to do that again for another character.
The monks can heal too. I could pull out the dirty “let enemies heal for more EXP” trick, but I'm out of patience and these enemies don't drop too much experience anyway.
I'm never going to get tired of this.
I don't think I've shown the Blast spell yet. It's pretty much for healers only, and it's quite a bit worse than Blaze and Freeze. However, it's the only wind elemental spell, and there's quite a few enemies with weakness to it. I never get around to using it because Sarah's always busy healing, and why would I want to waste her precious MP on a bad attack spell?
It also dawns on me now that Shining Force's palette doesn't go completely out of whack when casting Blast. I have no clue why Shining Tactics' does.
It's not long before the evil cloud and the dark archer are the only enemies left. Also, the evil cloud has resistance to ice magic. It's extremely annoying how magic resistances seem far more prevalent than weaknesses.
Oh, and that archer bonus I was talking about? Remember how I mentioned that most flying enemies have high evade rates? Turns out archers get to ignore that. Not only that, but archers do 25% extra damage to fliers. It's not a big difference now, but that 25% is going to keep scaling up as the number get bigger – and boy do the numbers get big in this hack. It also helps that flying enemies come in oodles towards the end of the game.
All that said, the last archer gets pinned and I club him to death via my usual “surround the archer and don't let him act” strategy.
Well you see, plucky groups of young and unlikely adventurers tend to be the bane of evil personified. At least, that's what Japan would have you think.
Battle Report!
Level 13 1 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 16 1 HP/1 MP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 13 2 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 13 1 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF Level 14 2 HP/4 MP/1 ATT/1 DEF/2 AGI
Level 13 2 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI
Level 13 1 MP/1 ATT/2 DEF/1 AGI Level 13 1 HP/2 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 14 1 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGIWhen we get to Bedoe, it's time to loot the place.
Like the Chirrup Sandals, the Quick Ring also grants +1 MOV. Naturally, it does not cast egress anymore. I toss it to Kiwi, because mobility on tanks is a good thing. I also pick up new weapons for Bowie, May, Slade, and Chester here. Making our way up to visit King Bedoe...
We talk to the prince instead, who apparently already visited New Granseal and returned by the time we got here. Not having wings kind of sucks.
Well damn, that just isn't friendly. But I can't really blame Volcanon for being a dick, since I'd be kind of insecure if I looked like this too:
Yes, Volcanon looks like that. It's canon. Go play Final Conflict if you don't believe me.
As a result of Volcanon's dickery, Peter joins as a full time character now. He no longer solely exists to snipe kills from better characters.
Yo check out this sick bush
I tried to cram in a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff joke in here, but it just wasn't working out. Just letting you all know we'll be getting Skreech a million hours from now.
So the devils are looking for the blind kid. Couldn't possibly be because he's their general, that would be ridiculous and contrived.
Hairy man joins up. He's got strong offense but pretty meh defense. Not quite as bad as Slade or Kazin, but he's still very prone to getting killed if more than one enemy leashes to him.
The start of the fight – the top half – is easy enough. But see that gigantic clusterfuck at the bottom-left? If I charge headfirst into that, it's almost guaranteed death. Why is that? Well, we've got a new enemy mook on our hands:
Look at that attack stat. Look at what it does to Kiwi when he's standing on 30% terrain.
There's two more new enemies that we're going to be seeing a lot of in the near future:
The latter is the captain of the fight. Sadly, I will have to kill him early because zombies just hit too damn hard right now. Strangely enough, the black monks only lasted one fight and got promptly replaced.
That new arrow for May is working wonders.
After I drop the first set of enemies, almost entirely hobgoblins and zombies, I decide I'm going to try something I've never done in this fight before. Rather than charge down the middle and invite every live enemy onto my back, I'm going to trek down the right path, eliminating that group of three enemies (evil cloud, archer, and zombie) first. That should make handling the giant blob in the center much easier.
Several turns later, things got changed up. Most of the center enemies triggered and started closing in on me, leaving the master monk, the master mage, and an archer behind. I have no qualms with this because I'll have trashed the bottom group by the time they get to me. Don't worry about that stray blip in the center, it's just Luke taking a nap.
Three turns later. This hack really isn't so hard once you've figured out how to manage enemy groupings.
The leader hits harder than I'd like, but I suppose that's better than him blazing my entire team. Still, leashing onto Bowie isn't good, because he's still pretty fragile at this point in the game. I end up having to kill the mage without taking down the monk or the archer. I have to idly wonder how much EXP and gold that ended up costing me.
Battle Report!
Level 15 4 HP/2 ATT/3 DEF/2 AGI Level 17 2 HP/2 MP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 14 2 HP/1 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 15 2 HP/2 ATT/2 DEF/2 AGI Level 14 2 HP/4 MP/1 ATT/1 DEF/2 AGI Level 14 1 HP/2 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 14 1 HP/1 MP/2 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 13 1 HP/2 ATT/1 DEF/1 AGI Level 16 3 HP/2 ATT/2 DEF/2 AGI
Not like you would have been much help. No offense.
Yeah yeah, we're dragging you along. I get it. It would be nice if you had magical lasers or something to help out, but at least I don't have to protect you in fights or anything.
I had to include this screenshot because I've been cutting out so much of the plot. Just so everyone knows where I'm going. Oh yeah, Luke joins the party too. He's less bad than he used to be, but is still kinda bad.
You know, I feel like this game has gotten a bit too easy now. I sure hope there's going to be a fight going down that really tests my capabilities soon.
NEXT TIME: Sequence Breaking!