Last time on Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, Marth and his friends killed a bunch of faceless pirates and got sent on a boat to the continent with some mercenaries hired by the king of Talis.
For a long time it has been a poor, but peaceful port town. One day it was suddenly attacked by a pirate gang and it has since become their base. From Garda port, Marth begins the first steps to liberating his homeland.We're finally introduced to the Preparations screen. Not much of interest, but it's something. We're taking all of our units this time, but eventually I'm going to rely on you guys for picks.
Ho ho, what have we here? Grunia? If I remember the intro scroll correctly, they're one of Durhua's allies. This should be good.
There's some guy with a face, meaning we can recruit him.
The boss looks familiar. It could be worse, though, in the original the same portrait was used for around half the bosses.
That's going to be fuuuuun to fight on.
Move out!
OH YOU-- hang on, I don't recognize those guys, either...
"I have been ordered by my king to join your army, along with my three
subordinates. This is Garda port, which is currently ruled by pirates. The Grunian army has also come to defeat your highness. No matter what happens, please be cautious."Also. You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned Supports or anything like that. That's because there aren't any.
So, uh, Kain and Abel? Doga? Gordon? Their only dialogue will come from saying something upon their death. Poor guys.
They have some in Book 2, though, don't worry. Well, the paladin bros, at leastSo let's take a look at Oguma's st--
Do you SEE those stats?! This will be a beautiful day.
I'm not sure where Shadow Dragon got "Bord and Cord" From, but Maji and Saji are passable replacements for the real man here, Barts, whose stats I forgot to get a screenshot of.
I suppose now would be a good time to post music, but we have an issue: I can't find any of the Mystery of the Emblem music on the Internet. So have the Shadow Dragon version of the same song instead. It sounds better, anyway.
The Time to Act, the player phase theme.
Our first turn consists of getting ready for slaughter. Oguma, Doga, and Gordon will take the brunt of the northern forces; Maji and Saji are there as backup. Jeigan will be holding that bridge over there, while everybody else will make their way toward the northern one to take on the other enemies.
The first of the enemies on the northern island is a pirate who thinks it's a great idea to go after Oguma.
look at those numbersO - O
OGUMA I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU A LOT
MARRY ME OGUMA
we have a god on our hands, menOn our turn.
That attack range is bad news for Sheeda. But Jeigan should make good bait for our Kashim friend to attack so Sheeda can get him to turn coat.
Oguma continues with his streak of violent murder.
GORDON GO BACK TO PRETENDING TO BE MARTH
Our eastern forces. Oguma decimated most of the enemies, so we're just cleaning up stragglers now.
Our western forces. Marth and Jeigan should do adequately as bait for Kashim and the Grunians.
Oh yes~
With plenty of critical hits, of course.
You might be wondering how Marth and Oguma are getting
so many damn critical hits right now. Well, I'll tell you: True Hit. Or rather the lack thereof.
Fire Emblem vets are familiar with True Hit as a mechanic introduced in
Binding Blade and kept up until
Fates. True Hit is a mechanic where rather than having one random number generated to determine whether or not an attack hits, two random numbers are generated instead, which are then averaged together. This skews chances a lot; while 50% chances of hitting are actually a 50/50 chance, lower numbers become less likely and higher numbers are more likely. Odds in the 80s are really bumped into odds in the 90s, while chances nominally in the 90s are more or less guaranteed.
So, without True Hit, as the series was up through Thracia 776, 10% chances of critical hits are actually 1 in 10 chances of getting a critical hit rather than something like 1 in 20. Ergo, characters like Marth and Oguma who have high critical hit chances get
a lot of critical hits in comparison to later games, which almost all Western gamers started the series on. (Hackers at Serenes Forest, the premier FE fansite, have yet to determine exactly what
Fates runs off of, by the way; the general consensus is that it's not True Hit, but it's not traditional 1-number rolls, either.)
The downside of no True Hit comes back to bite me in the ass later this chapter, by the way.
Meanwhile, Kashim goes after Marth and misses.
Also, "Forgive me, Sheeda"? What the heck? Are they related?
Meanwhile, Barts takes out the other Grunian, and holy hell does he hit hard.
Go go recruitment rangers!
You should probably listen to this. "I must find gold to buy medicine for her..." "So you joined the pirates, I see. Well, I have some gold here. Take it to buy medicine for your mother." "...! You would help a traitor like me... Sheeda, please forgive me!! I...! Sheeda, I will lend my life to you!"And that's that! So now we have another hunter on the team. He can promote into a Horseman someday, but for now he's a Gordon with stronger attack and weaker defence. Should serve us well.
Oguma and friends continue the northeastern murder spree.
Meanwhile Kashim visits a house.
"However, to use weapons of greater might, you must have the necessary Weapon Level."Thieves are worth buttloads of EXP, making them prime targets for those in need of levels.
The tradition of mercenaries having ludicrous animations with lots of jumping around and flipping goes back a long way. Yes Oguma is jumping seven feet in the air there.
Oguma and co are almost ready to come join the rest of us as we close in on Gomes.
When will they ever learn?
Kain does more violence on the enemy.
Doga receives a very nice level up. There may be hope for you yet.
Saji or Maji, I forget which, ends the Northeastern Brigand Brigade and allows Oguma and co to head over to the western castle.
Marth attacks the second-to-last pirate...
...and feeds Sheeda the kill. She needs more EXP.
Abel puts the last of the pirates (save for the boss and his cronies) out of their misery.
"If you want to take them back out, just approach Prince Marth."This is one of those things the games can never decide on. One game, the Lord can just pull free stuff out of hammerspace. The next, they just can't, period. Then you get weird stuff like Merlinus and suddenly you loop back around to hammerspace.
I maintain that it's a law of physics, because it's always consistent within series--both Elibe games force you to use special convoy units, while Chrom appears to have inherited this magical ability from Marth.
I just barely managed to grab this screenshot; Abel attacked a pirate with his Javelin and managed to snag that 1-in-5 miss chance, the aforementioned downside of no True Hit.
Jeigan drops by the Armory in the meantime to window shop.
HAVE I GONE MAD
The answer is that I have not. Jeigan's getting Abel a lance he can use so he doesn't use up his Javelin fighting at close range, while the iron sword is for a new friend we're meeting next chapter.
Unexpectedly, the pirates surrounding the boss both went after Abel. I think the AI believes that wearing his javelin out ASAP is a good move?
Sheeda exterminates the last one...
...getting her first, reasonably good level in the process.
Marth drops by our friendly local village.
"Miss Rena helped to cure the poor and sick. However, she didn't heed our warning and went to the dreaded Devil Mountain."I think your first mistake was naming it "Devil Mountain".
"We haven't seen her since. The way Miss Rena treated us was like that of an angel. Please, you must rescue her. For this, we have gathered 3000 Gold. We will leave Miss Rena to you."Free money!
That's better.
We now confront the boss.
o noes not a hand axe
You're exceeding expectations, Kain.
you and I are going to have a good, long friendship, KainAnd now the moment of truth: Gordon's showdown with the pirate king at high noon...
And he strikes true!
gordoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNAlso he got a steel sword from that, so that's nice.
"Now we can finally live in peace once again."
"To reach Orleans from here, you must cross Devil Mountain. Please be careful. Devil Mountain is ruled by the Samsian gang of bandits. They have raided villages and ambushed travellers. They're a fearful bunch. Especially that bodyguard, Navarre, who has a frightening sword arm. I sincerely hope that your journey is safe."Next time on Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: "Don't you understand why I betrayed them in the first place?"
"You can cut me down with your sword right now."
"Take this! Kill Sword!"