Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 17

Author Topic: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! [COMPLETED!]  (Read 69172 times)

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #165 on: August 28, 2010, 08:02:43 am »

Alright, in this installment, alot of people upgrade, so let me just got all that out of the way first rather than have them interrupt every other sentence:

Fee:


Fee transforms into a Falcon Rider, and gets the Continue skill for her troubles. Now that I'm actually taking the time to think about it, I just realized I forgot to give her a live staff or something for her new ranks in staffs.

Lester:


Lester get's some more stats and that's it. He doesn't get as many mentions as he deserves, since he's really shaping up into a respectable character.

Lana:


Lana becomes a high priest, and cans a C rank in wind, fire, and thunder magics. I let her purchase an offhand wind tome and get her to work in the arena. She's immediately formidable enough to to demolish the last arena contender, shown above... Granted, she only had one hp left.

Aless:


Aless doesn't get anything on his upgrade to Paladin besides better stats. Oh, and an additional rank in spears, but who cares about that when you have the Mistoltn?

Alright, now that that's out of the way.


By around this time, Fee should have made her way across the mountains and made it to the cluster of villages in the northwest corner. In anticipation of this, the level designers specifically placed three forrests with magic swords.


What's notable though is that, off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure this is the only female forrest in the whole game. She has an interesting combat sprite, so I don't know what's why she isn't used more often.

There's a pirate that's ravaging the villages, be sure to have Fee rush in and kill him ASAP. Do this or else you run the risk of losing an item.


Handling Hannibal is requires a bit of finesse. You want to kill his soldiers, but you DON'T want to kill HIM. The reason why will become evident soon enough. I personally suggest keeping your distances, picking off his soldiers with long-range attacks one by one. This is especially important since his units can easily severely damage your units with their hero weaponry and sleep swords.

See the way I have my units arranged in the photo above? Don't do that. I accidentally placed all my units too close, resulting in an highly unpredictable mass massacre of his units by my strongest guys. I could have very easily killed Hannibal in the process.


Once all of Hannibal's units are gone, his AI changes. He will try to rush back to the entrance of his castle to get more units, but don't let him. Rush ahead of his slow ass, kill the loser that's guarding Kapathia Castle (his castle), DON'T SEIZE THE CASTLE, and then have a unit that's not Celice plant their ass in front of the entrance so that he can't get it. Hannibal WILL NEVER attack, he'll just get to his castle, realize he can't get in, and then just sit right next to the guy that's blocking him. Ignore him for now, but don't let him get into his castle.

We have another problem though, and that's that Trabant's finally caught up with us.


His goons, like all the others before them, aren't that tough, but Trabant is tough...


You know, sometimes I wish this game had voice acting, just so I could hear memorable lines like this in their full glory.

Trabant is a problem though... until you realize that while he has the Nihil skill to prevent people from critical'ing him, he doesn't have any mode of retaliating against ranged attacks.


This is one of the best conversations in the game as far as I'm concerned. I think being killed by the son of the man he mercilessly slaughtered is a fitting karmic ending for Trabant.

After Trabant dies, we zoom into Thracia Castle:


It turns out that Arion had only struck Altenna hard enough to knock her out, and she's only coming to now. Arion caught drift of his father's death, meaning he's now officially the King of Thracia. Altenna begs him call a truce with us, but Arion insists that as far as things have progressed, that fighting to the death is the only reasonable solution. Altenna leaves distraught at her brother's pigheadedness.


Yep, right there. That's where she's left to. Still an enemy though.


Continue down through the valley until you encounter Luthrecia Castle.


It's only protected by a single worthless peon, who's easily dispatched. Seize the castle.


You seize the castle, and you discover a boy inside named Corple. He tells you about his dad Hannibal, and says he wants go to him, and show him he's alright! He joins our party.


Corple is the son of Sylvia and Azel, and brother to Leen. He's a level 1 male priest. Not very impressive since you get him so late in the game. However, an enemy earlier (One of the twerps in Hannibal's Battalion IIRC) dropped a reserve staff. Funnel some money into Corple's hands any way you can, and then have him buy the staff and start using it ad nauseum. Each use will net Corple 90 experience, enough to level him up 9 out of 10 times. Keep funneling money into his hands, and you'll have no problems whatsoever getting him to level 20.


Anyway, you know how Altenna was still any enemy? Well, her AI will force her to make a B-line straight towards Celice. BE VERY CAREFUL SHE'LL STILL ATTACK! The moment you can, have Celice run up and talk to her.


Altenna apologizes for her actions against him, and offers her loyalty to him, to which he gladly accepts.


Altenna has the holy Gae Bolg, and TONS of physical stats to make her an excellent combat character. Unfortunately, as far as practicality goes, she's never seen much use in any of my previous games. This is because she has two crippling weaknesses: Bows since they'll always critical her, and magic since she has absolutely miserable, pathetic magic defense. Both of these get more and more common as the game progresses, so it always seems like there's no good situation to place her in.

Now, I hope you've had the snail-like Corple slowly backpeddle his slow fucking slow ass backwards to the place we've already fucking been, Kapathia Castle, and talk to his dumbass dad.


And we finally, and anticlimactically, get our last character, Hannibal!


Now, I have no idea what the devs were thinking here. Hannibal's only purpose in the game is to fill the General-shaped hole in the player's character roster, and nothing else. He contributes absolutely nothing to your army. He doesn't have enough movement points to keep up with all the rest of your army as they stomp around killing everyone, his initial stats are unimpressive, his stat growths even less so, he doesn't have a good combination of skills, Continue might as well not even be their with how fucking slow he is, and hell, he's not even a good defender since there's only a few spots in the whole game where you'll be in a position where defending your castle of vital importance, and during those spots there are better characters than Hannibal that can do it. A complete waste of a character as far as I'm concerned, and he's the last guy we get! I'd have preferred anything else over a slow-ass General.

Well, he does bring ONE good thing with him, a second broad silver sword which he's initially equipped with. Those are sweet weapons, have him pawn it and give it to someone more worthy.


So get everyone crackalackin' over to Luthrecia, because our next foe will be arriving any second now...


This is Musar and his band of Knights. Now, I should tell you this is where the game starts hiking up the difficulty considerably...

Till next time!
« Last Edit: August 28, 2010, 08:14:41 am by JoshuaFH »
Logged

Creamcorn

  • Bay Watcher
  • [FANCIFUL]
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #166 on: August 28, 2010, 08:09:54 pm »

Huh, is it possible to have the previous generation not fall in love with each other. I.e., make it so no one is interested in anyone so that they don't have kids.
Logged
"OH NO! That carp is gulping at me menacingly, even though it cannot really threaten me from here on land!  I KNOW! I'll dodge into the water, where I'll be safe!"

Blaze

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Chaos that Crawls up on you with a Smile.
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #167 on: August 28, 2010, 08:29:15 pm »

Huh, is it possible to have the previous generation not fall in love with each other. I.e., make it so no one is interested in anyone so that they don't have kids.

It is, but then you'd just get replacement characters that are nowhere near as useful.
Logged

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #168 on: August 28, 2010, 10:00:20 pm »

Yeah, the replacement characters aren't anywhere near as useful as those you make yourself. Even really bad pairings produce better characters than the replacement characters you'd get otherwise.
Logged

Creamcorn

  • Bay Watcher
  • [FANCIFUL]
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #169 on: August 28, 2010, 10:04:21 pm »

Yeah, the replacement characters aren't anywhere near as useful as those you make yourself. Even really bad pairings produce better characters than the replacement characters you'd get otherwise.

After this LP, you should do a short mini LP of this.
Logged
"OH NO! That carp is gulping at me menacingly, even though it cannot really threaten me from here on land!  I KNOW! I'll dodge into the water, where I'll be safe!"

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #170 on: August 29, 2010, 02:41:57 am »

Yeah, the replacement characters aren't anywhere near as useful as those you make yourself. Even really bad pairings produce better characters than the replacement characters you'd get otherwise.

After this LP, you should do a short mini LP of this.

Not to disappoint you, but that would require an awful lot of work for very little reward. I mean, I'd have to play through the entire game again, which is already very long, and through the entire playthrough, I'd have to make absolutely sure that none of the females get hooked up, and then start the mini-LP at chapter 6, and reiterate the second half of the game using inferior characters. So yeah, sorry, I don't intend to do that.

Actually, I've been aiming to frequently update this LP every day, because I only have so much time that I have access to my computer. I want to finish this game and the LP before I have to leave home again, which is only in a couple weeks. If I had indefinite time through, after this I'd probably do an LP of Front Mission, or I'd try to find a better translation of Thracia 776 and then do that.

ANYWAY:


We have Musar's troupe to take care of. He has quite the diverse band of ragamuffins at his disposal.


Musar has weapon users of every kind in his service, and he himself is a descendant of Sety, giving him access to the very powerful A-rank Tornado wind magic. He has very decent speed, and tornado only has a weight of 2, meaning that he'll get to Pursue much more often than you're guys. This makes him extremely dangerous since he can two-shot pretty much anyone in your party.


For one, it's not a good idea to chase battle them in the road between the hills, it's just not. Instead, I have the fast moving Faval run in and pick off one or two whilst running away.


Luring them into the trap I have at Luthrecia! Now, Musar is extremely dangerous, and my first few tries at this battle actually failed because I kept getting people killed because I forgot how stupidly powerful Musar is.


Until I just go "Aw fuckit, I'm using Shanan.", and then Shanan was the Musars.

Oh wait, no, he just killed him flatout, nevermind.


The rest of the guys shouldn't be too hard so long as only put your strong guys at the forefront of the action. In the above shot, I actually got pretty lucky due to the walloping that Oifaye and Faval received. I could've definitely of done that better, but noone died so I don't care.

During the action though, a FEW MORE people reach levelupability:

Faval:


He upgrades to a Sniper, and really doesn't receive anything besides increased stats. He should've atleast gotten Continue, that would've made a modicum of sense, goddamnit. Still awesome though.

Patty


Yes! Patty upgrades and becomes a ThiefFighter! This gives her the pursuit ability. The way I have Patty configured, she's a BEAST. She has a 50+ kill hero sword, giving her the auto-continue and critical abilities, as well as very good accuracy. Her Odo lineage through Holyn excels her speed and skill growth tremendously, meaning that she gets to use criticals and moonlight sword with a high enough frequency to be a seriously damaging fighter. She already had an excellent kill rate with just the two swings as a thief, but now she can swing 4 times per combat, basically guaranteeing that she'll get to kill whatever it is she's fighting.

Just awesome, I absolutely love Patty.

Johan:


I'm really starting to resent Johan. He doesn't have any form of repeated attack besides the Hero Axe. He doesn't have the strength to two-shot most enemies. He doesn't have the skill to be really accurate. He has ALOT of trouble completing the arena, whereas every other character will stumble every now and then, he just plain can't do it. He's not only inferior to his uncle Lex, at this point in the game he's inferior to EVERYONE because he's a standard character with preset parentage.

And really, pretty much all standard characters are irritating. I mean, the main ones like Celice, Julia, Shanan, Leaf, and Oifaye are very good, I don't mind them. Altenna is good as well, even if she has a few glaring weaknesses. Even Fin is decent, even if he's competing in a setting where everyone is simply better than him. Characters like Johan, Johalva, and Hannibal though? I can't stand them, because while they're not only bad characters, but they're made extra bad through the fact that you can't engineer their parentage beforehand and atleast attempt to fix up their poor stats and abilities.

But really, axes and axe-using units REALLY get the shaft in this game. Axes are the heaviest weapons in the sword/spear/axe triangle, immediately putting them at a huge disadvantage due to how crippling weight is. They're so heavy, in fact, that while they technically receive an evasion bonus against spears, it's completely negated by the fact that axes are just so damn heavy. Axes are strong, but are also the least accurate weapons of the bunch. There's a reason that the first enemies in the game are predominantly axe-users for these reasons. As a matter of fact, there's very little variety in the axe department as well. While all three weapon-types have a iron, steel, silver, and hero variety, swords and spears beat out axes by also having "Slim" varieties which are lighter and weaker. Alas, there is no such thing as a 'slim axe'. There's a throwing axe, sure, but I've personally never used it because it's so weak and heavy.

Also, there's very few, actually good axe-users in the game. In the first generation, you have Lex, Ardan, and Lechesis that can use axes, and in the second you have Johan/Johalva, Hannibal, and Leaf. Only Lechesis and Leaf have the real stats and abilities to make good use out of axes, but it's a waste because they could be using other, better weapons instead. I'm then excluding Hannibal just because I hate him and he can't be used for anything, so then you just have Johan/Johalva. Johalva DOES have the charge ability, the least useful of the continued attack skills, but he doesn't have the speed to back it up. Besides that, they all depend on the hero axe, the only decent axe out of all the axes available to you, and the two hits it guarantees just aren't enough. One other frustrating fact about axes is that you CAN'T pass down ANY AXES WHATSOEVER from the first generation to the second. This is because there are NO CHILDREN that have the prerequisite skills to inherit them. This is just an annoying tidbit that always gets on my nerves.

I mean, sure, you could give Johan/Johalva the pursuit ring, but seriously, fuck them. The pursuit ring belongs on a speedier character that can make better use of it. Now, you could argue that Johan/Johalva aren't meant to be offensive characters, but rather defensive characters due to how high their defense growth is, but this spontaneous rant of mine has continued long enough.


See where my cursor is? That's the village that will net you an extra Barrier Ring. I had Altenna pick it up because I decided "Hey, I made some good use out of Brigid/Faval, I'll try to get more use out of Altenna by compensating for her miserable weakness to magic" and that's what I aim to do. She's gonna be awesome just you watch.


Our next destination is Grutia Castle straight south from Luthrecia, manned by a Black Bishop named Juda.


Juda isn't too intimidating by himself, but he has Fenrir, a long range black magic, and as you can clearly see, he has a fuckton of IronArches and he has exactly one KillArch, which is basically a LongArch that also has a chance of criticaling.

So, basically, he has NOTHING BUT long ranged ordinance under at his disposal. Anything attempting to get close to him will be bombarded by a torrent of arrows and magic. For this reason, this guy is very dangerous because even your sturdiest units can easily be chipped to death by all these attacks.


Don't send your massive blob of units at him willy-nilly, Instead, having your sturdiest and speediest units all charge him. Fee is included in this group because she has a shield ring and the defence sword, giving her EXCELLENT physical defense, as well as the nihil skill so she can't be critical'd. These units should be able to withstand the barrage or dodge every shot as they run up to the castle and hopefully kill him and his arches with no difficulty.


Now, that wasn't so hard, but it sure as hell had the POTENTIAL to be. After everyone is dead, have Celice go up and seize Grutia.


It seems that Arion can't be persuaded to lay down his arms, this conflict must be settled in a fight to the death!


King Arion has other plans though...


Holy shit that's alot of dragons!


What he intends to do is send exactly one platoon of dragons to Mease, Kapathia, and Luthrecia, and try to capture them and deal a decisive blow in this battle.

Unfortunately for him, I have warp magic and a fistful of spite.

I leave Hannibal chillin' inside Luthrecia, because damnit, he's gotta be useful for SOMETHING, I send Sety to Kapathia, and Leaf (with my recently acquired Tornado magic) to Mease. Now, I DON'T REALLY need to protect Luthrecia or Kapathia, as losing them won't harm my win condition one bit, but I'll be damned if that punk bitch Arion one-ups me!

Do his dragons stand any chance whatsoever?


No, they don't. Even Hannibal, equipped with a hastily purchased javelin, has no trouble dispatching them. Sety just slaughtered them, and the ones at Mease honest-to-god won't attack the castle because they have a little glitch in their AI that says "Don't attack if you have no chance of winning" and so they just linger around the castle's entrance instead. That's why you can clearly see Shanan there as well slowly killing them all one by one.

Well, Shanan's also there in order to fuel the Balmung's kill rate, because I noticed that he only needed a couple more kills in order to hit 50. Balmung doing crazy crits is fucking awesome, I'm telling ya.


There's only one person left, ONLY ONE TRUE FOE left in the chapter, and that's Arion. This is one of the most difficult matches in the game, HOW will I overcome it?!

NEXT TIME!
Logged

Haspen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cthuwu
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #171 on: August 29, 2010, 03:28:16 am »

awww, Arion looks like a nice guy but he is gonna die. ah well
Logged
SigFlags!
Quote from: Draignean@Spamkingdom+
Truly, we have the most uniquely talented spy network in all existence.
Quote from: mightymushroom@Spamkingdom#
Please tell me the Royal Physician didn't go to the same college as the Spymaster.

Akura

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #172 on: August 29, 2010, 07:38:47 am »

Take him down with Altenna?
Logged
Quote
They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard.
... Yes, the hugs are for everyone.  No stabbing, though.  Just hugs.

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #173 on: August 29, 2010, 08:59:32 am »

Take him down with Altenna?

While that would be thematically appropriate, what with it being a man and woman, raised as brother and sister, both wielding the two greatest spears in all of creation, FIGHTING FOR ULTIMATE SUPREMACY...

That's not how it's gonna go down, unfortunately. How will it? You might ask...


Alright, so after Arion is done grinding all his spare dragons into meat paste against my castles, instead of say, using them to flank and overwhelm my army, he lies in wait. Him and his dragons are quite the fighting force, and so he's waiting for me to get close before he attacks.


Put simply, Arion is amazing dangerous. Attempting to fight him face to face is suicide, what with his 66 attack power, 31 speed, 37 defense, pursuit, continue, prayer and nihil, the odds are HEAVILY stacked in his favor. Arion's the perfect wielder for the divine Gungnir, bar none.

Now, while Altenna IS strong enough to do thirty something damage to him in a single strike, you have to realize that Arion will not only hit BACK for thirty something damage, but he'll probably strike her REPEATEDLY due to pursuit and continue, and his high speed to facilitate it. Plus, a large part of Altenna's strategy revolves around one-shotting the enemy with a critical, which she can't do since Arion has Nihil. Plus Arion can strike 4 times in a single combat, so he can flatout murder anyone that is unlucky enough to get into close range with him.

Ontop of that, his squad is the most dangerous thus far:


The Dragons at the forefront have sleep swords, while all the others have slim spears. You know what's worse then fighting Arion? Being put to sleep right before he impales you.


Alright, here's the plan: Have the majority of my party CHILL OUT near Grutia. Have my fastest, long range guys, preferably using magic, antagonize Arion's force into charging. Have them hit and run on some of his dudes and try your best to exploit Arion's one weakness: long-range magical attacks!

Arion's low magic defense makes it fairly easy to damage him with magic, and he can't retaliate at an enemy hitting him from far away.

The group to antagonize has four members: Leaf with Tornado, Delmud with the wind sword, Faval with ichival and leg ring, and Lester with the hero bow.


Oh man, oh boy, oh geeze, here they come.


Things are progressing really smoothly. I really like Arion's quote, it's pretty boss. There were some close calls with my characters getting hit by sleep swords, but fortunately it's only like a 15% or 20% chance for the effect to kick in.

Then, shocking developments! After luring them near Grutia, a number of lucky attacks leaves Arion at 2 hp! Using Leen, I then execute like five more long range attacks in order kill him... but I stupidly forgot that he had the prayer ring, so his evasion was pumped up so high that I could never hope to hit him.

Then I was all like, Oh no! I overextended myself trying to hit him, and now he can easily kill any of my favorite characters!

But then the reality happened:


Hey, where the fuck you flying off to!? Get back here!


You sunuvabitch I'LL CHASE YOU DOWN!


Motherfucker! Now I have to repeat that whole process!

After another reiteration of Plan Fuck-Arion, SUCCESS!


Delmud with those magic swords man, it's flipping awesome. Arion was the most excellent end of chapter boss in a long while.

BUT WAIT!


Julius pops out of fucking nowhere, and flys off with Arion, presumably to Barhara!

Man, what's that guy's game?! It's almost as if he's trying to assemble an army of the greatest warriors in all of Jugdral or something...


Handling the remainder of the dragon knights is a trivial task with no more Arion breathing down my neck.


Before I seize the castle though, Patty was able to accrue a bit more money due to all the fighting, handing it out to Corple, and then having him use the reserve staff over and over let's him hit level 20 with the greatest of ease!


Possessing a very high magic stat thanks to his dad Azel, as well as having the pursuit and continue skills, I pass off Arthur's wind tome to him and I make mincemeat out of the arena with him. He's extremely formidable for a high priest, much more so than that wimpy weakling Claude before him.

And that gentleman, is how you get a level 1 peon to level 20 in the same chapter that you receive him.

Now you can seize the castle.


Levin and Celice talk briefly about how they can't believe that Prince Julius just teleported in and took Arion away, and that all of Julius' power is coming from his dark heritage.


Celice has enough of screwing around in Thracia, so now our army plans on cutting to the chase. We make our way straight to the capital of Barhara, but to get there, we have to take a shortcut through a place called the Miletos District...

ONWARD! TO THE SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER!
« Last Edit: August 29, 2010, 09:01:53 am by JoshuaFH »
Logged

Haspen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cthuwu
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #174 on: August 29, 2010, 09:26:57 am »

100 bucks that they will mention 'Sorrow of Miletos' in first 3 cutscenes with our 'bard historian' :P
Logged
SigFlags!
Quote from: Draignean@Spamkingdom+
Truly, we have the most uniquely talented spy network in all existence.
Quote from: mightymushroom@Spamkingdom#
Please tell me the Royal Physician didn't go to the same college as the Spymaster.

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #175 on: August 29, 2010, 09:35:03 am »

Levin is a badass wizard man, not no SPOONY BARD! Well, he's retired, but still.

But man, I can't remember the narration verbatim, they might actually use that phrase! But goddamnit, I've already savestated over the story bits! No, now I'm curious.
Logged

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #176 on: August 30, 2010, 05:11:44 am »

Alright, completing the latest arena has the last few characters reach upgrade!

Tinny:


Tinny's upgrade into a MageFighter finally shaped her into a usable character. She only has Continue for repeated attacks, but her magic power is high enough to one-shot most enemies with her wrath + ambush combo. She also finally gets her A-rank in thunder magic, and so I purchase her that Tron magic that's been sitting in the shop for far too long.

Now, I don't know why it's called Tron, but hey it is what it is.

Arthur:


Arthur's transformation into a MageKnight  leaves him a lot more mediocre than I had originally intended. He doesn't really excel in anything stat-wise, doesn't really have a source of repeated attack, and all the items that could dig him out of his mediocre hole are all being occupied by characters that can make better use out of them.

Well, there's one item, the Earth Sword, which I briefly mentioned many updates ago, that I don't mind handing off to him. The Earth Sword will function like this: with it equipped, Arthur can feel free to place himself into danger, because if he's attacked, and is severely damaged, the wrath ambush combo kicks in, and he'll critical with the Earth Sword, leeching a TON of hp off the enemy in a single blow, setting him up for the process again; provided the 10 charges on the sword haven't been expended, and he manages to hit the enemy with each attack.

Altenna:


Altenna's level up is just as good as her brothers, with her receiving pursuit. However, she still has speed problems with the Gae Bolg weighing in at a hefty 15 units. I intend to pass off Nanna's speed ring to her in order to alleviate this problem, but it's still problematic.

Now that that's done:


Julius and Ishtar are seen discussing the success of the latest child hunts. Apparently, the revival of the Dark Lord requires so many child sacrifices that entire regions have to be raided in order to tear every single child from his mother's arms. Innocent mother's are being killed, children are being sacrificed, people are being enslaved, and Ishtar is here saying that the child hunts have been so successful that they actually have TOO MANY children just loitering around the castle dungeons.

Julius calmly replies that he'll take all the children himself to the capital, break down their ties with family and friends, and then pair them off to fight to the death. The survivors will become the new citizens for the great empire he wants to build. Ishtar tells him that his father Alvis doesn't want him doing child hunts, but he blows the matter off and tells her he'll handle it, before leaving.


Ishtar's mother, Hilda, then barges into the seen and starts harping on Ishtar nonstop about how she should pursue Julius more aggressively and become his princess as soon as possible. Jesus she's vitriolic. She then learns that some of the children escaped during some confusion in the latest sacrifice, and she immediately orders that they been hunted down and killed as an example to all the others.


We then get a short scene where two of the children are just running around in a panic, and they immediately run into a small nook in the mountains, because they don't know any better and don't have a lot of options for escape routes.

At our home castle:


Manfloy appears, espouses a few malevolent lines, and abducts Julia!


Levin and Celice immediately notice she's missing, deduce that she's been kidnapped, and instantly vow to rescue her.

Alright this is the PENULTIMATE CHAPTER! The stakes are getting higher and higher, and the danger is increasing with every fight. Here's the chapter map:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Alright, we have some children to save! They're pathetic little things with literally no stats whatsoever. Like the citizens before them, they can be saved for a free level up each. While they're being hunted, they're aren't in a lot of danger at the moment.


We ARE in quite a bit of danger though. There's a whole throng of blackmages just outside our front door with fenrirs, sleep staffs, and a new magic, Hel. What Hel does is that, when it hits, will reduce the unit's HP to 1. They're extremely inaccurate, and usually not very dangerous, but if the RNG doesn't favor you then you can be in alot of trouble.


Don't charge them, they have more than enough firepower to outright kill whoever they hell they want. Keep your guys held back and force them to make the first move. One of your staff users should have a fully charged up Restore staff, you're GOING to need it.


Prioritize which units are the most dangerous (the ones with Jormungs and Fenirs) and then brutally CRUSH the opposing offense. Yeah, the guys with sleep staffs will still hit some of your units, but they can be fixed up. The forrests and snipers aren't too much of a hassle, and so you should make short work of these bozos.


Our next stop is just around the corner, Cro Castle, with Hilda at the head of it. At around this time, you should have Fee start traveling straight west. We have another village to save!


Hilda is actually a very scary woman. She has a 50 power magical attack, 29 speed thanks to the speed ring, and pursuit to compliment it. She can easily two-shot any member of your party. Very dangerous, good thing she insists on not stepping out of her castle so we can tackle her on our terms.

Fun fact: If you don't count those you find in the arena, Hilda is the only unit in the game with the Queen class.

Now, as a side thought, I have a hard time believing that Hilda isn't actually Ishtar's foster mother or something. I'm led to believe that because she has minor Fala and pursuit & charisma, none of which had been passed down to Ishtar, when logically they should have.


A bit more dangerous though, are the knights that had been dispatched by Rados Castle all the way across the map, and are now just getting to us.

I can't believe I forgot to take some screenies of their leader, but he's a tough guy, he has a hero sword, a power ring, and the pursuit and critical skills. Don't EVER engage him in close combat with any character that doesn't have nihil, because he can get lucky, critical, and just demolish any unit you have.

See how I have my units arranged? This is to tackle only fractions of his fighting force at a time, and get the jump on him when he does charge himself.


Fortunately, I score a clean critical on him with Faval, and so he's dead.


Because she's so dangerous, you're best bet is to aim for an insta-kill with any of your Holy weapon wielders. I got lucky with Aless, but things could have very easily turned out badly.

One interesting note though that I never quite understood: Hilda mentions that she's avenging her husband (King Blume), her son (Ishtor, like 3 chapters back), and her... father? I'm pretty sure we had no hand in her father's death, as a matter of fact, if you look back at the family tree...

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y300/slapstar/Josh%20and%20Pictures/JugdralHolyBloodFamilyTree-1.png

Hilda's father isn't even specified. He was never introduced in either game, and doesn't even exist as far as canon is concerned. So I wonder if this line was a mistranslation?


Holy shit man, a conversation I don't have to summarize! Like, seriously, this is the most to-the-point dialogue in the entire game I bet.


Next time: Rados Castle and the first half of the Miletos District!
« Last Edit: August 30, 2010, 08:15:02 am by JoshuaFH »
Logged

Akigagak

  • Bay Watcher
  • Omnipimping
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #177 on: August 30, 2010, 05:53:24 am »

Child hunts?

Was that ever foreshadowed, or is it only there to loudly point out how much of a bad dude he is?
Logged
But then, life was also easier when I was running around here pretending to be a man, so I guess I should just "man up" and get back to work.
This is mz poetrz, it is mz puyyle.

JoshuaFH

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #178 on: August 30, 2010, 06:06:36 am »

Child hunts?

Was that ever foreshadowed, or is it only there to loudly point out how much of a bad dude he is?

Oh no, they've been mentioning them for the last 4 chapters, as every country in all of Jugdral is being forced to chip in to fill the child-quota. I've just been repeatedly forgetting to include these child hunts in my summaries because they haven't had an impact on gameplay, and in fact this is the first time we actually get to SEE the children, and are there for us to help. So it wasn't shoehorned in, they're an integral part of the Dark Lord Lopto's revival.

A large portion of Thracia 776's storyline also revolves around the child hunts and Leaf making it his job to stop them.
Logged

Creamcorn

  • Bay Watcher
  • [FANCIFUL]
    • View Profile
Re: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War!
« Reply #179 on: August 30, 2010, 08:24:21 am »

Child hunts?

Was that ever foreshadowed, or is it only there to loudly point out how much of a bad dude he is?

Oh no, they've been mentioning them for the last 4 chapters, as every country in all of Jugdral is being forced to chip in to fill the child-quota. I've just been repeatedly forgetting to include these child hunts in my summaries because they haven't had an impact on gameplay, and in fact this is the first time we actually get to SEE the children, and are there for us to help. So it wasn't shoehorned in, they're an integral part of the Dark Lord Lopto's revival.

A large portion of Thracia 776's storyline also revolves around the child hunts and Leaf making it his job to stop them.

So a summary of this entire game's plot is... get back darklord by inbreeding, hunt for loli children, ??? - END OF THE WORLD!
Logged
"OH NO! That carp is gulping at me menacingly, even though it cannot really threaten me from here on land!  I KNOW! I'll dodge into the water, where I'll be safe!"
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 17