Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JoshuaFH]

He ostensibly found it at Sophara. Where he's been keeping if not in his inventory is beyond me.

[Boksi]

It's called Plotspace. It's like Hammerspace, but for srs bzns.

[Creamcorn]

How about that ridiculous poof in his hair?

[JoshuaFH]

How about that ridiculous poof in his hair?

That's the Baldo Family Poof!

PASSED DOWN FOR GENERATIONS!

[JoshuaFH]

Let's get this show on the road!

At Castle Lenster, we have a conversation between Leaf, Fin, and Nanna. Their quest for independence has failed, and now they're on their last legs. But wait, is that the Rebel Army just over their? They plan on holding out until they can eventually roll on by and help out.

Meanwhile, at Alster:

The guys are planning on crushing Fin and Leaf rightaway!

Meanwhile in the Yied Desert:

We meet a young girl named Patty, who is being chased down by Prince Shanan! Apparently, Patty had just ransacked Castle Yied and apparently has the Holy Balmung in her possession. Shanan wants this sword.

Meanwhile, in Castle Yied:

The priests inside are all pissed that they just got duped. They order them chased down and killed. The main priest, Cutozov, is missing his book of Fenrir. This is good for us, since he can't blast us with long range black magic. What we're not told however, is that he'll find the book on turn 15, so we better hurry up.

MEANWHILE, AT RIVOUGH:

So I guess Yied is our first destination. Firstly though... let's take a look at the map, this one is another huge one:

Here we have our home castle, Rivough. it's placed neatly in the north-eastern corner.

South of Rivough is Lenster, a neutral castle where Leaf, Fin, and Nanna are hiding out.

Even MORE south is Alster, who is sending bad guys to stomp all over castle Lenster.

To the west of Alster is  Mel Castle. It's not that important at the moment.

Just north of Mel is Darna, also not that important at the moment.

Then FINALLY, at the very most northern part of the map is the Yied Desert Shrine Castle! THIS is our destination!

NOW, WE HAVE NEW CHARACTERS!

Right at chapter start, we get FIVE new characters. Let's take a look at them.

Leaf:

Leaf is Cuan and Ethlin's son, and Celice's first cousin. He's already been through hell and back if we're to believe the events of Thracia 776, but he's still just a level 1 nooblet. He's very weak at the moment, but trust me, build him up and he'll be one of our best guys. Also, he's the only character in the game with the Prince class, just like Lechesis was the only character in the game with the Princess class.

Nanna:

Nanna is the daughter of Levin and Lechesis, and the sister to Delmud. She's a the troubadour to replace Ethlin, and has the collection of swords and staffs that Lechesis had picked up on her journey. So, in other words, we get another fine healer, but Nanna also as the stats and skills to act as another warrior, so that's good for us.

Patty:

Patty is the daughter of Holyn and Brigid, and a distant cousin to Shanan, Lakche, and Skasaha as a consequence. Now, Patty is one of the few cases where the inheritance rule switches. What I mean by that is, is that Patty inherits her Dad's belongings, and vice versa. She's not that spectacular at the moment, but I had her inherit a 100-kill slim sword, so she'll be packing a ton of criticals with every combat. Plus, she has moonlight sword, meaning she can negate defense AND critical, for major damage. She also starts with a sleep sword, a weapon that, when it hits, has a chance to inflict the sleep status, forcing a unit into complete inaction for a few turns. What's great about it though is that it can be used in the arena to devastating effect.

Shanan:

Shanan has grown up quite a lot since we saw him last, and let me tell you, he's a monster. He has major Odo blood, and is thus the only person capable of inheriting the holy Balmung. He has very high speed and skill, allowing him to use his pursuit, critical, and meteor sword abilities very often.

Fin:

Fin is just as we left him in chapter 3. Since he starts off quite a few levels above everyone else, and possessing a weapon far superior to to anything Leaf or Nanna have, it's his responsibility to keep them from being killed. If you didn't take the time to level up Fin, then I guess you're just boned.

Alright:

See those guys? They're going to attack us... OR WILL THEY?

Metagaming for the WIN man! Teleporting Leaf to the home castle, first turn, greatly increases his chances of survival.

Also, at Yied Desert:

Have Shanan talk to Patty, and Shanan gets the Divine Balmung!

It's one of the best weapons in existence, and Shanan sure as hell knows how to put it to good use. Now his Continue, and Meteor Sword skills are enhanced even more, and he has the evasion to dodge all day, and can knock out almost any opponent in one or two hits! This is one hell of an introduction.

Back at Lenster:

There's a village near Lenster that's in your best interests to save. This one will give you a Speed ring, and every ring is useful!

GODDAMNIT BACK AT RIVOUGH!

Delmud gets a conversation that increases SEVERAL of his attributes!

SONUVA! I'm going to have to punish myself for taking all my pictures out of order and all over the place. BAD JOSH! BAD! BACK AT YIED DESERT!

Oh no there's some guys there that Shanan can kill but seriously endanger Patty! Metagaming powers activate! Zoop Zoop Inherited Return Ring out of that bitch!

Wait, just a few turns in we have to turn our attention to Castle Mel:

Here we have the lord of Mel Castle, a little dancer girl named Leen, and a Mercenary Knight named Aless. Apparently, his father was the sworn enemy of Sigurd. I wonder who he's talking about?

NOW, let's get to actually playing the game, SHAN'T WE?!

Now, unlike alot of other chapters, it's best that we DON'T rush out of the gates and start attacking things willy-nilly. Why? Because we ACTUALLY have some formidable enemies waiting for us!

There are these groups of blackmages just loitering all over the place! Now, there's TONS of enemies in this chapter that have black magic, and it's only now that we start to realize that black magic is really fucking powerful. I mean, look at Jormung for a perfect example: 90 accuracy, 20 power, and 12 weight. it's pretty heavy, but goddamn is it strong and accurate, AND it's a C-rank magic! Aura, the light magic tome from earlier, was an A-rank magic and that's HEAVIER for basically the same thing!

These guys are all over the place, and while they can only attack once, it only takes two shots of Jormung to take out ANY character you have! It's best to take things slow here, and slowly lure them closer to us and take them out before they can gang up on any of our weaker characters and kill them.

Meanwhile, Near Lenster:

I've saved all the villages I want, so now I can teleport Fin to Rivough, and then ZOOP ZOOP Return Ring herself back to Rivough!

BACK IN YIED DESERT!

HEEEEYAAAAAHHHH!

Inspite of Shanan's amazing amounts of speed, he's been severely injured in the conflict. There's noone else chasing him, but he can't get out of the desert without placing him into more danger. He'll just have to chill in the corner of the map until Celice can get his fat ass up their and save him. Will he be all right?

Find out next time!

New characters thus far: Five.

[JoshuaFH]

Continued!

Quick everyone, get your asses up there! On second though, only Celice, Fee, Oifaye, and Celice because the path is too long and too narrow, and too windy.

Also, before I forget:

Be sure to examine every character's stat screen and see if he or she has any conversations with anyone, and be ABSOLUTELY SURE to pursue those conversations. Pretty much every single one at this point in the game will yield stat gains or free items.

I engage in some shameless hit-and-run action to kill off the Blackmagi guarding the castle, but Fury is forced to retreat when Cutozov smartypants finds his Fenrir and begins bombarding Fee.

It's only know that I realize that whenever I mean to say Fee, I say Fury. If you ever see me mentioning Fury, take note that I REALLY mean Fee. Stupid similarities.

Oifaye puts an end to his magic shenanigans though. It was a real risky maneuver though, since he would have died if he got hit one more time, but the risk pays off me capturing the castle!

Close examination reveals that most members of the Lopt Sect aren't evil, merely misguided because they've been in hiding for so long, and practically every member today only had Loptousou as their god, so it's all they know. Celice is disconcerted by this notion.

We then get this really convenient land ramp so the characters that bothered to travel up their can get down easier.

Meanwhile, in Mel:

Lord Bramsel is opening the border for us to pass, but he's nice enough to let us know that he's planning a sneak attack in the future.

Now that the border is open, let's quickly head off to the last village of significance:

This one will net us a shield ring!

Goddamn, Fee is the ringiest ring holder this side of Lord fucking Ring. Now we just need to get her some bling necklaces, some gold teeth, BETTER earrings, get that armor jewel encrusted, a nice dye job, and some spinning rims for her Pegasus. She'll be the blinged out game character ever.

So let's just head down and sack some cas...

Oh my. Now, I'll be upfront about this, this is one of the harder battles in the game. Complimenting this large force are two named characters:

Hot dayum.

Meanwhile, in Mel though:

Lord Bramsel is getting feely with Aless' girlfriend Leen, and he sure as hell doesn't like that, and threatens to split his ass in two with the legendary sword, Mistoltn! Now, how does he have the Mistoltn? Simple, he's Eltshan's son!  He was abandoned for some reason, and we raised by Lord Bramsel.

Through all the various conversations, we learn that Aless believes that his father's death was caused by Sigurd, and has SWORN VENGEANCE against his son, which is as good as vengeance by proxy!

Anyway, Bramsel backs off, but swears that he'll get back at Aless for embarassing him.

Our current position:

We're just north of the enemy force shown earlier. How will I defeat such a large and formidable force?

[ToonyMan]

Gorilla tactics man.

[Haspen]

There shall be slaughter.

[Creamcorn]

There shall be slaughter.

And typos, don't forget the typos.

[JoshuaFH]

There shall be slaughter.

And typos, don't forget the typos.

I don't think I'm making that many typos. I know I must be making some, but I proofread out some of the egregious ones.

Alright, firstly:

Have Patty talk to Celice and you get a free Hero Sword! This is very important, because there are only two hero swords in the entire game, one in Chapter 3, and the second one right here. Be sure to not forget, because they're great weapons.

Now, to the battle at hand!

This the force I'm contending with. What makes it difficult is that it has a sizable number of mages and archers, with above average Thundermage Liza leading them all. Behind her are two longarch ballistas, and MUCH more competent magefighter Ishtor manning the castle, with long-range magic Storm on the ready to blast people out of existence. Meticulous attention to detail and useful tactics will be absolutely necessary from here on out if I intend on keeping everyone alive to the last chapter.

Now, when I first played this game, I had to savestate my way through this battle because I kept making the same amateur mistake. That being that I kept rushing in with all my forces and expected to win in a fair right. This is the wrong way to go about it.

Now, notice that the battlefield is HUGE, and we have a lot of space to use, so let's use it. Have everyone stand a distance away from them, enough that none of them can attack them, and then have a high evasion unit like Shanan run in by himself, enough to antagonize them into moving.

Then watch them march stupidly....

...AWAY from their long range support, and simultaneously cutting their left flank off from the rest of the formation.

With their backup gone, a third of their force unable to join the battle, and having placed themselves conveniently in range for all my units.

The rest is child's play.

Just be absolutely sure that you have your hero weapon users attack the mages. This is because basically all mages are high-damage units, and hero weapons are such high accuracy and damage that they can most likely be killed before they can attack.

Shanan is the best candidate for eliminating dangerous named characters, so feel free to make good use of him.

While the main offense force is now crippled, Ishtor remains a serious threat with this great stats, Storm, and Tron A-rank magic. Have your high evasion units run in solo and assault the castle.

And Ishtor is handled quite easily by Shanan.

Celice keeps bringing his soft heart to the conversation every time we try to capture a castle, and Levin keeps on having to beat him back into reality with cynicism and logic. Celice correctly denotes that Ishtor and Liza weren't BAD people, they were just doing what they were told. Heck, Ishtor died heartbroken when Liza, his lover, died on the battlefield within as he watched from the castle. Levin reassures Celice that the Lopt Empire must fall, and anyone and everyone that tries to stop them is is equally guilty of the the heinous crimes that befall the people all over over Jugdral (the world the game is set in).

Back over in Darna:

Lord Bramsel, fearing that Celice MIGHT attack him, gears up to attack us so we now have no choice but to wipe him off the face of the earth.

Meanwhile, in Alster:

Lord Blume has his subordinates, Fetra, Vampa, Eliu, and Tinny, dispatched to attack us.

But wait, somethings happening back in Darna!

Once Aless leaves the castle with the rest of the mercenaries, Leen is placed into prison (and it's implied that she's gonna be violated and then executed) by Lord Bramsel, and the mercenary Jabarro tells him this, and tells him that relationships aren't meant for mercenaries but apparently expected Aless to NOT flip the fuck out. He switches over to our side in a blind rage, and wants to rescue Leen.

We get a new character!

This is Aless, the wielder of the bloodthirsty Mistoltn! He starts off very awesome, since the Mistoltn pumps up his skill, and has the critical ability naturally tied to it, he can hack ALOT of enemies to pieces and can deal insane amounts of damage. To make things even better, he has the pursuit, continue, and ambush abilities, which make him even better.

Now, as much as the game implies that Aless is the abandoned incest baby of Eltshan and Lechesis, this simply isn't true. The family tree I posted earlier clarifies that a little known character named Grahnye was his mom. I've played this game a whole bunch of times, and I have no idea where this is mentioned, but I'll believe it since a Eltshan!Lechesis incest baby would have the Charisma ability, which he doesn't have.

Anyway, now we have a bunch of FreeKnights and Jabarro coming down on us from Darna. This conflict is actually pretty difficult, since the battlefield is mostly made up of meadows and roads, an ideal location for mounted units since it allows them to use their movement to the very fullest. This allows them to jet around and attack with all their units at once, dealing tons of damage and letting them dogpile on weaker characters very easily.

However, I have a plan:

Have Aless retreat to a nearby church on the cliffs, and have Fin stand right next to him. This creates an effective funnel. Have some other high movement characters bring up the side on the other side of the cliffs, but not close enough that they can be hit by the Free Knights.

Aless and Fin should be able to very easily survive the initial attack, which SHOULD only comprise about about one-half to two-thirds of the force, without the archknights that are bringing up the rear.

Once the initial attack is over, swoop in with as many units as you can muster to wipe out the rest of them in a single turn.

Jabarro will attempt to flee back to the castle to get more units, and I suppose you could use this to farm a little bit, but he's genuinely dangerous enough that you don't want this to happen. Kill him asap.

Elsewhere:

The identical triplets Fetra, Vampa, and Eliu, plus Tinny, with an all-mage force sent by Blume, is slowly advancing on our position, but they move so slowly that they can be safely ignored at the moment.

Back at Darna:

We have Lord Bramsel to deal with. Good thing for us, he's so pathetic that no real strategy is necessary.

He does have the horse slayer spear, but feel free to annihilate him with Aless. Aless so awesome, notice how he's the only character in the game that gets a black stallion instead of normal brown horse. So cool.

Back at Melgen:

Uh oh, looks like I've been messing around at Darna for a might too long, and I ignored the Mage Force when I shouldn't have, and they're starting to encroach onto Melgen.

How will I deal with them?

[JoshuaFH]

With BRUTE FORCE! That's how I intend to solve my problems!

Oh, it would seem the slightly faster Fetra, Eliu, and Vampa have managed to outrace their subordinates, and are now standing, alone, right before my nonstop tidal wave of lethal force.

PROBLEM SOLVED

The wimpy triplets teleport away before they die, but NOW! DARNA!

Darna, apparently, has a history tied to it, which Levin is more than ready to regurgitate onto us. Apparently, Darna was the original location the the original 12 crusaders were holed up, waiting to be killed by the Lopt Sect as the then current Dark Lord Loptousou was ready to take over the world. Then a miracle happened, where the 12 gods descended from the heavens and granted amazing powers and weapons to the 12 crusaders. They then went on to kick the Lopt Sect's ass, and killed the Dark Lord Loptousou, and the rest is history.

Aless is quick to remind us that he wants to save Leen.

Have him enter Darna Castle!

Aless jumps in, and saves Leen. She shows her appreciation by joining our party!

Leen is our dancer, and is the daughter of Sylvia and Azel. She doesn't start with any items and her stats will be in a perpetual slum of mediocrity regardless of who her father is, but it's a good idea to keep her tagging along with the rest of the group, because letting a character of your choice get a second turn can give you the decisive advantage you need to win a battle.

This is our 7th character....

Now...

Get Arthur, and have him TALK TO TINNY!

Arthur is instantly able to recognize Tinny as his long-lost sister, and convinces her to join our party. She really didn't like oppressing people anyhow, so she joins us.

Tinny is the female version of Arthur. While Arthur will most likely have mostly physical stats thanks to his father being Ardan, while Tinny will have mostly magic stats thanks to her mother being Tiltyu. She has the Ambush + Wrath combo just like arthur, and she has a strong magic spell to complement it.

And Tinny's our 8th and final character we'll be receiving this chapter! Aw, nobody guessed correctly! Got close though!

Now that all the enemy threats have been eliminated, I can feel free to take the time to advance all my new characters up the Arena ladder and gain them some free EXP.

For characters like Aless and Shanan, they have such good stats and abilities that they don't need to use their Holy Weapons except against the hardest guys, so have them use inferior, and thus cheaper, weapons instead so they have a chance to accrue a LITTLE bit of money so that they can actually repair their holy weapons. After all, the only downside to having holy weapons is how INSANELY expensive it is to keep them maintained. 1000 gold per charge is nothing to sneeze at.

For the weaker characters, I decide to indulge in what is quite possibly the dumbest goddamn thing I've done so far.

Now, Leen doesn't have the stats to fight fair and square with ANY of the arena contenders. She'll be murdered. There's a way to turn the odds in her favor though, and that way is the sleep sword. Have Patty, the original owner, sell the sword and have Leen purchase it. She can then take it into the arena with her, and with one or two lucky hits, she can put the arena contender to sleep. Then mash the B button in order to pause the fight, and outfit her with a cheaper weapon, like an iron sword, and then watch as Leen SLOWLY SLOWLY SLOWLY whittles away the opponents hp in a nonstop flurry of attacks. The contender will never get a turn because he's asleep, allowing Leen to attack and attack and attack over and over, each hit doing 1 point of damage, until the opponent is dead. Rinse and repeat with every opponent. Pictured above is the last, and most difficult opponent, Volf, and Leen's most retardedly protracted crusade to kill him. You see, even when an opponent is put to sleep, they can't attack but they can still dodge and use passive abilities like Great Guard.

So, in short, what is happening above is me HOLDING DOWN the button that makes my SNES emulator move MANY MANY times faster than it does normally. Leen is attacking, but her hit chance is 6%, and is thus perpetually attacking and missing. I have to hold down the accelerate button for a solid few minutes, advancing over what is probably hours and hours of game time, waiting for Leen to FINALLY kill Volf, which she does, and I throw my hands up in a display of half-hearted achievement upon seeing it firsthand.

Now, while having a high level Leen isn't that important, the sleep sword method of breezing through the arena IS, because it lets weaker, low-level characters like Leaf to fight and gain levels easily.

Alright, now that I'm done being retarded, let's look at our last and final destination:

That's Alster, we need to take this castle:

Put short, Blume is the badass that Reptor could never be. He has the TorHammer and the stats to pose a serious goddamn threat to us. We've receive not one, but TWO holy weapons this chapter, quite possibly just so the player has a goddamn chance of taking this guy down.

Alster has a habit of spawning a few waves of armours to attack us, but they're easily handled.

Now, Blume has a SERIOUS amount of firepower at his disposal. You shouldn't have ANYONE except Aless and Shanan attack him. Aless is extra special, because the Mistoltn because gives him a Magic Defense bonus, giving him the extra advantage. Anyway, also be sure to have your healing units their as well to repair any damage he does. A few wacks from Aless and Shanan should bring him down. Don't even think of trying to grind with this guy, he's FAR too dangerous.

Like the triplets before him, instead of dying, he teleports to Conote.

So, we just seize the castle and that's chapter end!

Next chapter will be the start of our conquest over Eastern Manster and the introduction of Ishtor's much more menacing sister, Ishtar!

[Akura]

Did I just see an attempt to make three relatively unimportant characters, two of which are the most common palette-swapped face and the third the same palette-swap with a couple dozen extra pixels of hair, seem more significant than they really are?

Kind of like the Assasin twins Celia and Lede from Final Fantasy Tactics, who were palette-swapped Dancers(were they even palette-swapped? They might have just used the regular Dancer job's sprite). While dangerous, the only real significance they had was a source of Ramza learning Ultima.

[Creamcorn]

Did I just see an attempt to make three relatively unimportant characters, two of which are the most common palette-swapped face and the third the same palette-swap with a couple dozen extra pixels of hair, seem more significant than they really are?

Kind of like the Assasin twins Celia and Lede from Final Fantasy Tactics, who were palette-swapped Dancers(were they even palette-swapped? They might have just used the regular Dancer job's sprite). While dangerous, the only real significance they had was a source of Ramza learning Ultima.

At this point, our only enemy is palette swapping method.

[JoshuaFH]

Give me a bit of time before I start the next chapter, because I intend on giving you guys a special present.

Did I just see an attempt to make three relatively unimportant characters, two of which are the most common palette-swapped face and the third the same palette-swap with a couple dozen extra pixels of hair, seem more significant than they really are?

Kind of like the Assasin twins Celia and Lede from Final Fantasy Tactics, who were palette-swapped Dancers(were they even palette-swapped? They might have just used the regular Dancer job's sprite). While dangerous, the only real significance they had was a source of Ramza learning Ultima.

At this point, our only enemy is palette swapping method.

Haha. You might think you're palette-swapping commentary is HIGH-LARIOUS but let me assure you, later in the game, three of the most hair-pullingly difficult enemies in the game are palette-swaps of eachother.

[Mephansteras]

I've been enjoying this LP, Josh. Looking forward to the rest of it!