Alright, technically, this is chapter 1. The first chapter in the game is the prologue. I just thought I should share that with everyone for correctness.
Also, I apparently made a mix up with all of FE4's trippy name conventions. It was Verdane that was invading Grandbell, not Agustria. Just thought I'd point that out.
Anway:
This is Eltshan, lord of castle Nodia within Agustria, and holder of the Mistoltn, one of the 12 holy weapons. Fortunately, he's just stopping by to check up on why Sigurd is invading Verdane, tells him that Verdane started it, and he merrily goes back to his castle.
After he goes away, we zoom into Gen Castle, and get this little scene:
Now, basically here, the Verdane aristocracy is holding a little kid named Shanan as hostage, and is forcing his aunt, Aira, to fight under them or else the kid gets it.
This is both very bad and very good.
Very bad because Aira is one of the best units in the entire game, and can easily kill any unit you have at the moment, even Sigurd.
Very good because you can recruit her, and she's even more awesome under your careful guiding hand.
Getting her is a tad tricky though, and it will probably require more than one try no matter who you are.
Enough of that though, this map is a pretty big one, so let me give you a quick tour.
This is castle Evans, our home castle. It can't be captured or you'll get a game over. The castle is located on the top right corner of the map.
Proceeding directly southward...
Gen Castle. In this photo, you can also see the platoon of barbarians that are heading northwards to attack us. Also, you can see Aira waiting for anyone foolish enough to approach her and inadvertently get killed in her unstoppable murderous rage.
Proceeding directly West of Gen Castle, we have...
Mar Castle. It's not doing anything right now, but it'll spring into activity once we get close to it.
Heading directly Northwest:
Is Castle Verdane, our main target.
Not pictured:
Castle Nodia, a neutral castle. (directly west from castle Evans)
Huge-ass lake in the middle of the map
Big ol' forest separating Mar from Verdane
Anyway, at the start of this new chapter, we're given some new features and options that weren't available before.
You'll notice that the picture of Castle Evans, inspite of being our home base, doesn't have anyone standing around it, so where's our army? Inside, of course. Click on the castle to get this screen:
Here we have everyone we've picked up thus far. From this screen, we can sortie (have units leave the castle to go fight), place them on guard duty (much like how enemy units will guard their castles), promote them (explained later), and, most importantly, go to town!
Now, we could go to town before, but we have some extra things that have opened up since then. Namely, the shop and the arena!
Let us spend some time with the arena.
The arena is a semi-important part of training for your characters, and is without a doubt your single largest source of income. If you want lots of money to spend on things, you're going to have to hit the arena every once in a while. How the arena works is simple. There's 7 predetermined opponents per chapter in the arena, in ranking order of weakest to strongest, with escalating rewards for each. Each individual unit you control may go to the arena, select a weapon, and then fight these opponents one at a time. Becareful though, if a unit is defeated in the arena, your unit doesn't die, but they're returned to the castle with only 1 hitpoint. This can be a major hindrance since the later matches in any given set of arena opponents get very difficult, and it's most likely that only your strongest units will be able to complete all 7 opponents.
after getting as far as I can with the challenges, I head south to fight the wimpy barbarians.
On our second turn though, we're treated to this scene:
In this conversation, it's revealed the Jamka, one of Verdane's princes, has taken pity on Aideen and a small thief child named Dew and released them from captivity. Gandolf, his brother, isn't so happy about this and releases a horde of barbarians to kill them.
Yikes! What this means though, is that we get two new characters!
Aideen is a straight up healer. None of this wishy-washy horse riding swordswoman multiclassing like Ethlin does. As a consequence, she's significantly better at healing. Her improved healing staff has alot to do with it though. Having to travel on foot though hinders her movement quite alot though. She has Ulir blood in her as well, which increases her stats in nonessential ways.
Now Dew... Dew is weak... at the moment. Dew has INSANE stat growths, and is incredibly difficult to hit even in his current condition. If you take the time to raise Dew's level, and upgrade him, he is easily one of the best characters in the game. Dew has three useful skills at his disposal. "Steal", which, when he hits an enemy, will also take all the money that that unit has; "Solar Sword", where he'll do a special technique during battle that drains his enemies life and restores his own; and "Bargain", where the price of everything in stores is reduced by 50%. Take note that Dew manages to be as awesome as he is without having any holy blood in him, just wow. Also, being the thief class gives him another ability, that being that he can GIVE his money to any of your other units. Extremely useful since any unit can only hold 50,000 gold at any time, and Dew'll be raking in fortunes during his career under your command.
Anyway, you're given two new units, but there's still the problem that both are a considerable distance away from a friendly castle, and are both being chased by a horde of enemies that they can't hope to kill.
There's a couple solutions to this problem:
I personally took the conservative approach of "Fuck this shit" and booked it out of there towards Castle Evans, cutting through the forests so that I don't get hit by the enemies camping near Castle Gen. The enemies will be following you pretty closely, so have Dew protect Aideen at all costs, since Dew isn't likely to get hit, and if he does, then Aideen can heal him up rightquick.
If you're more ambitious though, take note that there's a church within walking distance of Dew and Aideen starting location. You can feel free to have Aideen run away, and have Dew run to the church and plot his ass there. The enemies will ignore Aideen in favor of ganging up on Dew. Provided you aren't cursed with terrible luck, Dew'll have no trouble whatsoever dodging the enemies as they gang up on him. On the off-chance though that they DO hit him, the church that he's sitting on will heal him to full health at the start of every turn, at only the cost of a few pieces of gold, which Dew has more than enough of. This has the advantage of allowing Dew to gain QUITE a few levels without requiring much assistance, as well as letting Aideen catch up with everyone else without a plethora of bad guys following her. The disadvantage of this is that Dew is so unlucky that he gets hit twice in a row, he'll be killed outright. Also, this puts you on a timer, as Dew's starting iron sword only has 50 uses, and he's using 4 or more uses every single turn, and you HAVE to get to him before his sword runs out, because once it does, he's fucked since his dodge stat will be screwed to hell without a usable weapon backing it up.
There's a maintenance heavy alternative to the above situation, where there's a tiny beach alleyway south of their starting position, and if you have both Dew and Aideen hide in their, you can have funnel one enemy into their at a time, which is much safer since if he ever get's get, Aideen'll be there to heal him up, and he'll get some experience in the process. This is a tad safer, but you'll need to keep a close eye on their progress so that they don't get accidentally overwhelmed.
Oh, also, a couple turns after you get them, you can have Dew talk to Aideen in order to get a free warp staff. A very useful item.
Anyway...
While I was explaining all that, I've been totally murdering the enemy barbarian platoon. Like, seriously, these guys aren't tough. Just be sure not to let any of your units get overwhelmed by their slightly more plentiful ranged units. Also, the captain of platoon has an 'acquirable' item, a throwing axe, where the unit that kills him will automatically have the item added to their inventory. Try to have Lex get it if you can, since he's the only unit that can use it at the moment.
Alright, now what I want to do is carefully position my units so that I can get Aira. In order to recruit her, I have to capture the castle she's defending, and then have Sigurd speak with her. This is much more difficult than it sounds, since Aira, as I've previously stated, can butcher any of your units upon making contact with them, so you can't even give her room to move, let alone attack. So, basically, you need to capture the castle in the span of one turn, and then talk to her on the next since Sigurd needs to do both.
Carefully position your units to be just outside Aira's movement radius, and then in one fell swoop have all your ranged units attack the captain that's defending the castle, and have Sigurd quickly circle around, finish off the captain, and capture the castle. Upon capturing the castle, you'll get this cutscene:
In short, this scene has Shanan introducing himself. He's the prince of the country of Isaac that was abducted by Verdane to use as a political bargaining chip. Also, some lord from Northern Agustria pops out of nowhere, basically going "Lawl, Evans is undefended let's attack them rofl!".
Anyway, Aira'll freak out and make a b-line straight for the entrance to Gen Castle. She'll attack Sigurd, but I got lucky and neither was killed. Talk to her...
And Aira joins you! YES! It actually took me two tries in order to get everything just perfect so that I could get Aira without losing anyone to her implacable wrath. Some might think that that's too much trouble for one character, but trust me, you WANT to have Aira on your side. Why, might ask?
Here, Aira not only starts with respectable stats and a decent weapon, but she's the sole possessor of what might be best ability in the game: Meteor Sword. What it does, basically, is that randomly during combat, Meteor Sword will activate and allow Aira to attack 5 times in a row, uninterrupted. What's better is that it can activate several times in a single combat! It's fantastic, to say the least. Also, she has minor Odo blood, which gives her significant skill and speed boosts.
Our current situation:
You remember those guys that were chasing Dew and Aideen? Well, they've been led straight into my forces right after I get Aira. Murder will be had!
But what of those Agustrian douchebags that are trying to sneak attack me? Find out what happens in the next installment of Let's Play Fire Emblem 4!
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Topic: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! [COMPLETED!] (Read 69109 times)