|
  The voice of the people has decided we'll be taking the B route, and you know what that means? One less chapter before we can finally stop dragging Shanna around!    Torches! I'm sure there's an argument to be made for spreading out your vision areas, but I'll pretty much always prefer making thief vision even better. Besides, I'm already used to devoting inventory slots to nonweapons on them.   Speaking of, let's kick things off with some petty theft.   Doing so reveals two more pirates and a shaman across the mountains, but we won't have to worry about them for a while.   Our recruitment duo team up to take out the pirate in front of us.   Time to start chipping away at our support backlog. In general I'd say supports are a bit less relevant here than in base FE6. Their biggest impact was in helping you reliably hit enemies, particularly bosses, as well as taking your dodge tanks from mostly invincible to totally invincible. With the overall increased hit rates in Project Ember, neither of those use cases is as valuable.   : Of course. Do you expect me to lose to weaklings like these? : No, never.: Then I won't ask you how you're doing. We knights of Ostia are always at our peak. I appreciate your concern for me, but worry about yourself before you worry about others.: Yes, sir. Hopefully you weren't expecting anything mindblowing. These are still FE6 supports, after all.   We'll have to split the army up eventually, but for now there's only one path to take.   ...Is what I would say, if we couldn't fly. Storming the top island early isn't so important that I'd have forced Shanna into the party, but as long as she's here we might as well take advantage.   We can also pull a neat trick courtesy of 3 range bows. There is exactly one place you can stand on the starting island that's reachable by the archers up here.     Conveniently (and potentially with a bit of savescumming  ), Wolt has just enough bulk to tank both of them, and he's even fast enough to double and kill with the steel bow instead of using up his valuable prf.   : You can't see him through all this fog, but he also has a girl with him...This house is weird, because as we're about to see, Sin and Fir haven't actually met yet.   Astolfo's staying put, but did you know that one of the starting locations on this map is normally impassable terrain? Anyway, enemy phase! Now with extra surprises from the fog!   A mercenary and soldier reveal themselves, while the other pirate on the second island wins a coinflip against Noah.     Fun fact: on one of my failed attempts Wolt crit both of these guys. On the second hit, naturally.   This is a much better flex than redundant crits.   I think this is the most reused boss portrait in the game? Not counting the Mulagir chapter's gimmick, of course.  : Oh, Fir. Sorry to call you in. : What's going on out there?: The island is under attack by pirates. They've come to kill the people living here.: What?!: I sent some guys over to try and stop them, but the pirates are very skilled. The outlook isn't good.  And thank goodness for that. Can you imagine a moving berserker boss, in fog? What kind of sick, twisted bastard would do such a thing?   : Yeah, thanks.: Leave them to my blade! Anyone who attacks innocent villagers will get no mercy from me!: I have someone you can work with too.: You do?: Yeah. He's a nomad named Sin. He's a little skinny, but he's a decent shot with his bow.  I do appreciate that the cutscene gives you a general idea of where the two of them spawn.  : Yes. I heard everything from Scott. Let's go.: ......: ......: So, uh...: What?  : Then why are you here?: I'm paid to fight. That is all.: ......: ......So do you think Sin knows he's working for pirates? I certainly wouldn't put it past him.   : Right.  : As for me, I'm traveling around Elibe to train myself, and... Oh, you didn't ask about me, did you...?: ......: ...Sigh.She's trying so hard. : ...I'm looking for someone.  : ......: Our chieftain had me escape and told me to find and protect his granddaughter. I'm still in search of her.: I see... Well, I hope you find her.: ...Me too.  Why is this scene so long? : I know what I'm doing. Once she's killed, we can take that sword she's carrying. : The sword? That weird one she has?: It's not just any weird sword. It's a Wo Dao, a famous blade from the east. It's worth a fortune. Heh heh...: Ohhh, I get it now. That's why you were so hospitable to her.: I couldn't do anything before, but now's our chance. I want you to follow her. Once she's finished, take the sword from her lifeless hands!: Sure thing, Boss!It'd be a funny joke if the wo dao was actually droppable if you killed Fir. I definitely remember at least one game doing that with a recruitable enemy.  Ugh, finally.   That soldier that popped out of the fog isn't the one we saw from the prep screen, by the way. He's got a silver lance instead of a horseslayer.   Starting the turn with some sibling bonding.   Chad gets into position to bait the fighter, revealing an archer that we'll need to keep an eye on.    : In the north and in the west, they're always engaged in battle. Which way will you go?It's west. We're going west.   Here's how the rest of our formation shakes out. Now to check in with the airdrop strike team.   Our first step is to lure in the fighter. We'll have Debias set up shop (  ) on the vendor; it'll also make a decent chokepoint later on.  Everyone else moves in close enough that Shanna can shuttle them over in a single turn.     Nobody appeared from the fog, so this is the extent of the enemy phase.     The soldier and fighter go down easily, and Bors even starts making up for his streak of garbage levels.     The mercenary, however, requires more of a group effort.   Swapping Sue to the steel bow so she can counterkill the archer.   I promise other people will get to do things eventually.     Now that he's up close, we can't rely on counters to finish the fighter off. That's going to delay getting everyone across, but it is what it is.     Another mostly uneventful enemy phase.   It's still more combat than we're going to initiate this turn, though. With no enemies nearby, it's time to break out one of these torches and get some more information. I suspect Fir is getting fairly close by now.   She's still not visible, but we do reveal two packs of enemies to keep in mind for later.     We also uncover some more on this island, but it looks worse than it is. There's only one spot they can attack Chad from, so he's perfectly safe.   Roy too, as long as he doesn't crit them, and Noah can bypass everyone except the fighter entirely.       Squeezing out a little extra movement for Elen so she's actually in range to heal people next turn.   That's all for this group.       Debias could ORKO the knight now, but enemy phase will be just as good. That 4% crit chance could gently caress us over though, so Saul breaks the seal on our physic staff.   This was a mistake. I should have grabbed Astolfo first like all my other attempts. Not the end of the world, but it'll slow us down a bit.   There she is!     Roy is nice enough not to ruin my plans, and Debias avoids getting crit too!   Here's Fir's danger zone, not that there's any reason for us to advance that far. The bigger concern will be not accidentally leaving Noah too far away to reach her.   Skill!!   Gwendolyn finishes off the soldier, making room for Zelot to body block the warrior.     Once again, burning through the merc's HP requires some coordination.   I'd be more upset about this if I actually expected us to keep using him.   The entire main force is now on or past the central island.     We're also one take->drop away from having everyone up here reunited.   Unfortunately Wolt is too scrawny to do it, so he'll have to settle for baiting the myrmidon.   Fir advances as expected, and we can also see Sin weaving in and out of the edge of our vision range.     He may not be in immediate danger, but every coinflip Zelot wins is a turn he doesn't have to be healed.   Uhhh shoot, where was Sin again? I'm pretty sure it was this space, but we really can't afford a mistake here.   Chad helpfully confirms it for us. As long as we don't go past where Fir is, we should be safe.   He also gives us our first look at the boss. Uh, let's just say that I have no intentions of ever leaving anyone in Scott's range. Luckily we have bow users to spare.   A quick heal before we send Noah in.   : Sir Noah?! What are you doing here?! : I joined this army back in Ostia... Woah! What are you doing?! Sheathe your sword!Noah briefly disappears offscreen while dodging the attack.   : I know you're a mercenary... But lending your services to pirates?! You should be ashamed!: ...What?: Don't act like you don't know! You're working with pirates to attack the people living here! And you call yourself a knight?!To be fair, Fir's not... totally wrong. Roartz and Arcardo are cooperating with the bandits, after all, and we're at least nominally working for them right now. I'm not sure what they were expecting to happen when they sent us here, but uncovering my_crimes.txt probably wasn't it.   : We're trying to help the villagers. Our goal is to defeat the head of the pirate group here. His name is Scott, I think.: What? Scott is the head of the pirates?: Sure is. If you don't believe me why don't you ask the pirate over there? The one behind you, hiding in the bushes.: Pirate? What pirate--?  I had a run where I managed to end up with an enemy fighter right behind Fir, which made this bit extra funny.     : Well, certainly, but...I take offense at the implication that anyone could ever mistake Bartre's magnificent 'stache for the face of a villian.  : ...I was fighting for pirates this whole time... What should I do now?  : We're always looking for new recruits to bolster our strength. I'll talk to Roy for you.: Thank you! And then neither of them said a word to Roy ever again, the end. But hey, new unit!     pre:Growths HP 70 Lck 45 Str 40 Def 10 Skl 65 Res 30 Spd 75   We don't need her wasting it now, though, so let's go ahead and borrow one of Roy's swords. She also relieves Chad of his vulnerary so he can steal again later.   With Sue heading up to meet our other recruit, we can see the breakdown of a new split in our forces. Everyone below the top of the screen (and also Chad) will be breaking southward, while the others reunite with Shanna and friends.   Barthe pulled that hit off, by the way. It wasn't remotely necessary, but he barely gets any experience from unpromoted enemies right now.   That goes double for Zelot, of course, not that it matters much.   Lilina's still bringing up the rear.     Here's Shanna's obligatory round of combat for the chapter.   This is why saving Astolfo for last was a mistake. This fighter could be dead now, but instead he's going to get a hit off. Whatever, it's been a while since we had Saul deliberately tank anyway. End turn.   Mm-hm, mm-hm, all according to plan.  That sure as gently caress isn't, though.   Uhh, hi there, you're a sage.    Cool, cool, so uh, that straight up kills the majority of our army. Including our supposed res tanks on account of them being slow as poo poo.  Of course, that assumes we actually let him attack. Let's try and avoid that, shall we? Sin's got a bow, he can help.  : Sin... What are you doing here?: I was looking for you.    : ...We lost.: ......Shouldn't Sue know this already? The conquest of Sacae was complete when the game started, and there was just an implied timeskip to boot. This is old news. : What happened to my grandfather?That is a relevant question, however. : He still continues the resistance against Bern...: Is that so...    : Then of course. If that is what you desire, I am at your disposal.: Thank you. More bow users... good...     pre:Growths HP 80 Lck 30 Str 45 Def 25 Skl 50 Res 10 Spd 50   Hmm, I don't exactly love either of those options. And Sin is on the list of units that the sage oneshots, so even if we got a short bow into his hands, we'd have to also engineer a way for him to get the killing blow. ...gently caress it, I'm pretty sure we can still salvage the situation if he misses.    Now if Noah had missed that, then we probably would've been hosed. Good thing he didn't!   Crisis averted, Fir and Roy move up to join the others.   But wait! I've foolishly left Sue in range of a halberd! How will we get out of this one?   Okay I lied, Shanna gets to see two rounds of combat.   Well, uh, at least she got strength? Also A rank lances.   Wolt to the rescue! With an unnecessary crit, no less.   I already know from previous runs that there's nobody hiding in the corner, so everyone not named Shanna is done here. She can handle shopping and village duty on her own.   Down south, the path is too congested for Chad to advance fully, so we'll have Elen shed some light on the situation instead.   Somehow she managed to miss both magic and resistance, but it's not like she really needs more.     All it reveals is the same two pirates and shaman we saw back at the start, but I guess we should actually take a look at them now. The hand axe is whatever, but the other two are dangerous enough that even Zelot can't tank all three. We'll have to hang back a bit.     Not a lot of room to maneuver, and it's only going to get worse.   One dodge! Plus some more pirates.  Two dodges! And now there's nowhere left for the shaman to attack.   See that merc that just appeared next to the castle? It's important to note that he's not the same one from this group of enemies. That guy's still standing right here. We don't want to lose track of him later.   As for the one we can see? Well, mercenaries haven't gotten any easier to kill.   Saul really likes the numbers 10 and 11.   That was a very convenient dodge.     Trading away Roy's iron sword has consequences. On the other hand, it's not like we're running out of rapier uses any time soon.   Now we'll just have Sue take a potshot at the boss and... oh. This might take a while. : But you must be in rough shape at least! I'll finish you off!    Luckily we have archers with actual strength stats on their way.   : They're all deserting the Isles for the mainland. It's very sad, really. If you want to visit, you'd best do it quickly. You won't have time to go to both, so you'll have to decide. We could wait around a hundred turns and they'd both still be here, but step inside one? Boom, gone.   Lilina finally gets to contribute!   Chad fishes for a crit... and gets it! And a sword rank.   Now we can see that there's an archer behind those pirates with a present for us. Hiding valuable steals in the fog would be kind of rude, if you weren't basically guaranteed to be bringing thieves to fog maps anyway.   This one's extra funny because Gwendolyn probably wouldn't have been able to double him if he'd been a mage instead.   Neither of the pirates have a ranged option, so we're relatively safe, but once again nobody can tank all three.     Well, Zelot's luck was bound to run out eventually.   These guys also decide to start moving.   Clearing them all out is a tall order that requires at least one crit, but we can leave one alive without putting anybody in danger.  Oh. Uh, that might actually be a problem.   Maybe Sue can salvage this for us?  Haha, no.   One down, finally. Now what?     Can't say I'm happy about having to break out the rescue staff this early, but needs must.   Well that was nearly a disaster. Hopefully the other team has an easier time of it.   But first let's lock in our route choice.  : Are you with the resistance? No? Then you just did it out of the goodness of your heart? As I'm sure you've seen, these islands are swarming with pirates and bandits! There's nothing we can do out here, but word is the resistance is waging battle in the western part of the Isles. Tell them we'll all move to the mainland. They don't have to worry about us...  If nothing else, I'd rather have this than yet another killer bow like the other village would have given us.   Gwendolyn kicks things off down here with an okay level.  I really wish it wasn't so cramped. There's no way to heal Zelot right now without clogging up the works.   Honestly I'm just happy he hit.    Plus this might as well be a perfect level for Barthe.   This is good too, but I'd really like to see some speed soon.   Mine now.   Luckily Lilina can just barely survive a round, so we don't have to pull any shenanigans.   That said, I did hotswap everyone to a ranged weapon, which means this guy should die on enemy phase.   Speaking of which, here it is!   Yeah, neither of these targets is very surprising.     We've got reinforcements! Reminder that cliffs are still impassable, so they can only make landfall at beaches and bridges.  The solo pirate also has a pure water to steal. In vanilla this would have been an antitoxin, but uh, you may have noticed we haven't seen a single venin weapon so far? Yeah, they flat out don't exist anymore.   Here's the general gameplan: Fir and Astolfo are going to have a theft/training montage up here.     Roy and Noah will end up helping out down south.     Everyone with a bow is on boss duty until further notice.   Including levels for Sue and Wolt.   And of course, these guys still have some ground to cover before they reach the action.     Which just leaves Shanna to keep running errands. Buyable wind edges are neat, and I believe this is also our first opportunity to get more hammers. I go for both of those, as well as an iron sword, steel blade, and hand axe.   Scott regains 5 HP a turn, so as long as at least one person not named Sue hits every time, we'll be making forward progress.     There's four waves of reinforcements, which means four pure waters to steal. Using Fir as bait runs the risk of her critting and killing prematurely, so that can be Astolfo's job.     Roy needs to check in to get healed first, but Noah is ready to enter the fray.        This potentially puts Chad in danger, but I trust him to dodge, and we need someone standing here to cover Lilina's approach.     Everyone else advances, with Barthe joining Zelot out front.     Nothing we haven't seen before. I restock on staves, but otherwise we should be alright for now.     Enemy phase starts off as a mixed bag. I'd rather have it this way than the reverse, though.   The short axe pirates don't even bother trying to confirm the kill on Chad. Fine by me, even if the extra chip would've been nice.   Besides, he got this sweet level out of the deal.   Place your bets, will we manage to whittle down Scott's HP before the reinforcements stop?     We're almost certainly never going to use these. I don't have a problem, you have a problem!   Fir gets just under half a level per kill, times four enemies comes to almost two levels. Hopefully we can squeeze a few nonlethal combats in to make up the difference.   This is a very weird level, but I guess it's sort of on brand for a character with lovely luck to hit their luck growth and almost nothing else.        Better. I even care about the weapon level, since Debias starts down at E bows.     It's always nice when the numbers work out exactly.   Shanna's just gonna hang out in case anyone needs a rescue.       With a proper wall set up down here, we can instead stress over me actively gambling with Lilina's life.     Bors doesn't have that problem, though. Thanks, weapon triangle!    : In these conditions, you can never know if someone's waiting to pounce! Torches can be very useful, even if you have an eagle-eyed thief with you.Why would you put this house in the far corner of the map??? The chapter's nearly over, it's too late for tutorials!       Literally nobody dodged. Also Fir can't actually double all the pirates, which I guess is good news as far as not accidentally killing them goes.     Sue leads off this turn, switching gears to facilitate some inventory shuffling and chip the pirate down further.     Fir skillfully avoids her speed growth on her first level, but otherwise it's got everything she could want.     Wolt is the only one who hasn't missed a shot yet.     Neither Roy nor Noah can eat another hit, so Zelot steps in to take over for them.   Gwendolyn gets this crit, but I'm more interested in that frame. There's so much to unpack here: The bow itself is smearing, the bowstring has disappeared entirely, the arrow isn't lined up with the action effects, and the pirate is already flashing even though he hasn't been hit yet. None of this is a complaint, to be clear, I think it's great.    Oh, I guess we didn't need to protect Roy and Noah after all.     That's fine though, it just means Zelot can get started on the one behind.   It's got all the important stuff, this is a certified Good LevelTM.   Fir still can't dodge for poo poo, but Bors manages one at least.   No more reinforcements. The enemies we can see are all that's left.   Lilina's close to another level, but we've already tempted faith once...   Yeah, no, we'll just have her poke the boss instead.   We walked right past that village earlier, so Chad is doubling back to grab it.       Let the record state that Roy gained two points of defense this chapter.   Sin's turn to make inventory space!     And then there was one. For some reason the last reinforcement moves before the guy in front of him, so he's stuck a space further back and can't actually reach us this turn.     Probably time to start thinking about who to give the kill to.   Uh, where the heck are you going?   Oh, right, he's probably trying to get to the village. That's easily fixed, from both directions.   I want to get rid of this iron bow, but I want Sin to do it so he levels up.   Meh.     Healing doesn't really matter at this point, but experience is experience.     One last failed coinflip for the road.       And that's that. We actually could've killed Scott last turn, so I guess he was technically the winning bet.   A good level, I'm glad we held out for it.   There, now Marcus and Zelot both get to finish their careers in style.  : You're no ordinary army...  One last loose end to tie up. Also: not anymore.   : They take everything from us. Resist, you say? It's of no use. They can do whatever they want because of their numbers. We can't fight against them like the resistance force.   We could be done now, but this heal staff is nearly out of uses.   Saul gets a solid level in the middle of finishing it off. Okay, now let's seize.    : They must have known we were coming.  Ohhhh, now I understand what Roartz's plan was. We were just supposed to die here, weren't we? : Ever since Bern's aggressive behavior started, Elibe has changed. : I don't even know what to expect... Dragons appearing, Bern's sudden invasion, the collapse of the Lycian League... Everything happened so suddenly. In the end I suppose all we can do is take it one problem at a time.  : West?West! : I heard there's a resistance group based there. They're fighting the bandits to protect the villagers.    Maybe another day, Echidna.   Next time: If I had a nickel for every time a prince in this series disguised himself as a wandering bard...
|
| ← # ? Dec 11, 2022 15:49 |
|
