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[JoshuaFH]

Alright, I finished and added the map to the update. You'll find it after where the chapter-start conversations are over.

I also added another link to the family tree where I was mentioning that Hilda doesn't even HAVE a dad to avenge, just so people wouldn't have to slog through my previous updates to find it and confirm I'm telling the truth.

I have a theory about that though: depending on how long Blume and Hilda have been married, she could be referring to Duke Reptor, who would be Blume's dad, and Hilda's father-in-law. They could have had a good relationship, and she was simply colloquially referring to him as 'father'. Then again, Celice didn't have a hand in his death, but revenge by proxy seems to be all the rage these days.

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!

Well, that's rather simplistic, and he doesn't want to end the world, merely rule over it as it's all-powerful, unquestionable ruler.

[Akura]

Maybe her father is one of those anonymous redshirts you've been slaughtering throughout?

[JoshuaFH]

Now, there is almost nothing standing in our way to capture Rados Castle, just a another dark bishop and a few black mages.

What's more important though, is the fact that a pirate has been pillaging this village right above Rados, we need to stop him! You should have had Fee fly in and exterminate the problem. Then have whoever you want liberate the village in order to receive a magic ring!

Rados is only guarded by a guy named Morigan. He's a piss-ant, not a big deal.

He doesn't look very dangerous, and he isn't. Just follow the precautions we've been using for all black magic users thus far.

Defeated and seized handily.

Apparently, Rados is a ghost town except for those that fully cooperated with the Lopt Sect. Anyway, with control of Rados, we can finally open the gate that's separating us from Miletos!

Meanwhile, in Miletos Castle, in the middle of the map:

Emperor Alvis tries to persuade Ishtar into letting the kids go, and leave while she still has the chance. Julius steps in though, and apparently has his dad completely under his thumb. He tells Ishtar to keep doing what she's doing, and his dad to fuck off and go back to his castle, which he does begrudgingly.

Julius then has a nice long talk with Manfloy, who informs him that the descendant of Narga, Julia, is the only person capable of stopping him, and recommends that she be executed at once. He interjects though, saying that he has a more practical purpose for her.

Julius then invents a new game for his girlfriend, called "Who can kill a rebel the fastest"!

We head into the Miletos District, where Julius and Ishtar are patiently waiting for us on the other end. His first appearance in unit form.

Dark Prince Julius is a stone cold killing machine. He has excellent stats across the board, giving him a 60 power attack with the Unholy Lopt Tome. He can critical at less that 50% hp with wrath, attack multiple times with pursuit and charge, and take a beating with his superb defense stats and 80 hp, an amount that practically no other units have.

However, here's another guessing game, the Lopt Tome only gives a +5 bonus to magic defense, and other than that, it only has the 30 power that all other holy weapons have. WHY IS IT SO DANGEROUS? CAST IN YOUR GUESSES NOW!

Of course, Julius is the only unit in the game with the Dark Prince class, and his lineage circle has a large glowing dot signifying his major Lopt blood that casts a shadow over all the others. There's some dark text that appears over it that's hard to see in the picture that says "Loputousu".

I swear, the text must have been translated by like 10 different guys, because there's atleast that many spellings of the word Loptousou.

And Ishtar:

Ishtar is the same as before, but still extremely dangerous.

To GET to them though, we have to slog through the most irritating batch of enemies the game has yet to throw at us. There's sleep staff mages here en masse, along with plenty of fenrir and jormung users that can chip you off easily. Even with a unit with a restore staff on the ready, and a dancer on the ready so that restore staff user can restore two units a turn, the magi can put three units to sleep at a time, and they refuse to come out of their hidey-holes, so you have no choice but to send your units at them in a giant pissed off mob in order to kill them. Utmost diligence and planning is required though, because it's very easily to get a unit killed here.

After painstakingly weeding out every enemy, we still have Julius and Ishtar, and the few peons that are hiding in their movement radius. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ACCIDENTALLY END A UNIT'S TURN WITHIN REACH OF JULIUS' ATTACK RANGE! ESPECIALLY CELICE!

Memorize how far Julius can move, because you NEED to have the upper hand and play things out to a strategy!

Oh god, how badly is he gonna kill us?

[Boksi]

My bet is that the Lopt tome completely ignores magic defense.

[Haspen]

With each chapter the game goes more and more sadistic.

Julius, hmmm... one-hit with critical made with uber weapon?

[Akigagak]

Is it the 80 accuracy?

[Haspen]

Always hits

or

Always criticals

or

Ignores magic defence

My guesses are from teh most possible to least possible being the last

[Akura]

Always hits

or

Always criticals

or

Ignores magic defence

My guesses are from teh most possible to least possible being the last

All of the above?

[Haspen]

That would be overkill

[JoshuaFH]

Alright, the answer to the guessing challenge:

What makes the Unholy Lopt Tome so dangerous? You see, it has a special mechanic tied to it that no other weapon has: when you enter combat with the Lopt Tome holder, the game takes your TOTAL attack power (Your strength/magic + weapon might) and HALVES it for that combat!

I can't tell you how crippling that is given how the formulas work. Any attack, no matter how weak, will always deal exactly 1 'nick' damage if your attack power can't overcome the opponent's defense, and that's pretty much all your guys are gonna be able to do.

Let me put it this way, a unit with an attack power of 40 is strong, but that'll be halved to 20 and wouldn't be able to overcome Julius' 25 defense, dealing 1 damage. A unit with 50 attack power is very strong, but would still only deal 1 damage. A unit with 60 attack power, only achievable though using a holy weapon, would deal 5 damage if it were physical, and 1 damage if it were magical...

So basically, given that a critical will double a unit's attack power, a unit HAS to critical to deal NORMAL damage! It's absurd! Now, I really pity the person that would be playing this game for the first time with no walkthrough, because the game doesn't tell you this, you have to walk into it, deduce what's happening through careful observation of your stats, and go "Oh shit...".

Let us inflict pain on ourselves:

After killing someone, either Julius or Ishtar will declare themselves the winner of the competition, and then they'll both teleport to who-knows-where. I'm aiming to reduce Julius to 0 hp, and force him to teleport away.

One thing I really like about the Lopt Tome though, is how awesome it's animation is. It's a giant fucking black dragon that comes out of nowheres, makes a horrible, terrifying roar, and mutilates everyone with it's power.

You know, since I have the power of savestates at my command, now is as good a time as any to show off the death quote for each character:

And my favorite:

Spouting that lame poetry till the very end heh Johan?

The only unit not included is Hannibal, because I don't feel like dragging his fat ass all the way across the map for what is probably a single line of text.

Alright, now to go at it seriously:

To take down Julius, you need to have all your units on the ready and PREPARED. Don't let a single errant detail slip by.

I got extremely lucky, and it only took two tries to get off unscathed. I have Faval go in first, knowing that his speed bonus would prohibit Julius from using pursuit, and let him lure him forward and take the first hit. As a matter of coincidence though, he shot off TWO criticals, and reduced Julius to 6 hp. I then had Shanan jump in, get a lucky critical of his own, and that finished the job.

If you don't want to subject yourself to the damn hard trial and error battle that is fighting Julius, you can "feed" him a weaker character you don't care for, like Hannibal, and that'll satisfy Julius and he'll teleport away with Ishtar.

Now that that's through:

All we need to do now is capture Miletos, and the only person standing in our way is...

Trivial!

Darn, it would seem the children have been moved elsewhere again!

Meanwhile, in the topmost castle, Chalphy:

Alvis is talking to his advisor, Palmar, and tells him to take the children, and a "Special item" that belonged to Sigurd and flee the castle.

Then Julia shows up, this time with all her memories restored (remember how she had amnesia when she first joined up with us?). Alvis takes this opportunity to finally tell her how much he loves her, and how he's sorry that he didn't notice that Julius was Loputousu incarnate. He breaks down further and admits that it's his fault for not stopping Julius when he was young, and how it's his fault that he got strong enough and evil enough to start bossing him around, and how he couldn't do anything when he killed Deirdre, his own mother. He gives her the circlet that Deirdre owned, and tells her to escape the castle while she still can.

But then Manfloy shows up, and tells Alvis that he'll be instead escorting Julia to Barhara, and if he doesn't want Julia to wind up dead, then he better stay in line and kill the oncoming rebels!

East of Chalphy:

Palmar is stuck in a dead-end! He needs help, and he's trusting us to provide it to him.

We best hurry though, because a squad of black magi are descending on his position! We need to cut through Alvis' personal army first though...

[Creamcorn]

Seriously, what's up with Manfloy? Someone tell me where all of his damn power comes from! I don't want to hear that it comes from the writers.

[JoshuaFH]

Besides being a high level Dark Bishop, he's the right hand man of Julius, who is SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than his Dad. It's basically that when Manfloy speaks, he's asserting Julius' authority on his behalf, which Alvis can't defy.

[Akura]

Then how'd Manfloy do that to Deirdre early in the game?

So basically, given that a critical will double a unit's attack power, a unit HAS to critical to deal NORMAL damage! It's absurd!

Thank god he can't Nihil.

[JoshuaFH]

Because Deirdre was weak and taken by surprise. I don't see the conflict there.

If you're asking about the memory erasing/restoration powers, then I really don't know. I guess he's just been spending all his free time taking psychological manipulation classes.

[Mephansteras]

Did I somehow miss the post where Deirdre got killed?