Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Part 11: Woah, We're Halfway There!

In which I take on 3 chapters, and learn the pain that is Ballisticians. Also we learn about a new kind of shopping!




Chapter 11: Knorda Market

Marth and company at last arrive in Archanea proper. The palace, called by some the Millennium Court (the fastest court in the galaxy!) lies just past the mountains ahead of us.

I get an info screen describing a new unit type, Ballisticians. They're like archers, except they have ballistae, which means they have a super long range, but can't hit anybody close by. In game terms, they can hit units 3-10 squares away, but cannot hit units at range 1-2. So if I can rush past their range they're vulnerable, but it's going to be complicated.

Oof, Nyna tells Marth about the last time she was at the palace, when Archanea fell to the invasion. She saw her families' bodies hung up as an example on the palace gates. It's a painful memory, but she is resolved to go on. She cannot change the past, but she can shape the future.

This exchange makes me wish Nyna had been the focus of the story instead of Marth. She already has a lot more character for me than Marth. (I know the protagonist is often supposed to be kind of blank as a player insert, but Marth isn't exactly that, he just seems... a bit bland?)

Anyway, we start the map in a pass between two mountain ranges. There is a village across the mountains to our east surrounded by "Ruffians" and the Archanean Palace is across the mountains north of us, surrounded by Grust soldiers (including several Ballisticians, one of whom is named Jake. I can probably recruit him.) I start moving Northeast through the pass, but two of Grust's Pegasus Knights fly over the mountains from the North and attack my rearguard, but as the rearguard is Draugr, Wolf and Gordin they make short work of the enemy fliers. Inspired by this, I send Minerva and Caeda over the eastern mountains where they start ruoughing up the ruffians. Everyone else, stuck on foot, has to move slowly through the pass, trying to stay out of the Ballisticians' range (Two Ballisticians can hit a single square on my side of the mountains, and I accidentally leave Merric there at one point. He survives fortunately, but I'm more careful from there on out).

Caeda levels to 11, gaining HP and Luck. Cain, the first to make it to the break in the mountains, attacks a ruffian and levels up to 11 as well, gaining HP and Speed.

Minerva talks to a villager named Anna, who tells us about Jake. She says he isn't a bad person, but he really only wants to talk to women (not sure if he's just shy around men, or if he's the "I'm too flirty" type...) Sounds like a job for Caeda. Another villager (unnamed this time) tells me about the Three Regalia, legendary weapons of Archanea. There is Pathia, the bow of flame, Gradivus, a lance that can pierce stone, and Mercurius, the spectral sword. Legend says only the gods-blessed may use these weapons, though the villager isn't sure he believes this.

Marth visits the actual village (the other villagers were in lone houses inside this mountain valley) and confronts the leader of the ruffians. The ruffians are belligerent until they see the League behind Marth, and then they run away.

Munchin' Manaketes should definitely be a new trend in cries of surprise and alarm.

Inside the village is Linde, disguised as a boy. She hid herself to escape Gharnef when her father died, but was immediately caught up by these ruffians and held hostage with the rest of the village here, but she can use magic and wants to avenge her father.

She joins us at level 1... but she's a magic user, with a good back story, so I want to be able to use her. Hmm, there's an arena here in this valley, maybe I should do some arena grinding?

... Several hours later ....

Linde is level 12! She gained a fair amount of HP, magic, skill, speed, luck and resistance. Compared with Merric, she's pretty close in power. They have similar magic levels, and Linde is a bit better at skill while Merric is a bit faster. Linde has better resistance and Merric has better defense. So it's a toss up. They can talk to each other too! Merric is sent to keep an eye on her by Marth, although he admits that magic users like them can look out for themselves. Linde asks Merric to tell her about the school he attended; her father once went there, but he was always her teacher and she never went to school herself.

So long as your battle planner doesn't accidentally leave you in range of ANY ENEMY ATTACKS, no.

Also, Abel is level 11, Julian hits level 12, Caeda hits level 14, Athena level 13, Gordin level 11, and Lena levels all the way to 20 and then I use the one promotion item I have to promote her to a bishop!

Bishop Lena!

She can use fire magic as well as healing now, and her resistance is a spectacular 17! Lena gets to a level 3 Bishop before I decide to call it quits with the arena and start taking over the rest of the map.

Well, mostly. I want Caeda to be able to promote soon too, so she can get a better chance at increasing her strength. She's capped her speed at 20 until promotion but her strength is only 5. However she will only ever get a double attack from speed, so she will want more strength eventually.

I also moved Wolf just inside the 1st ballisticician's untargetable zone, which lures out an enemy horseman. The horseman tries to sneak past Wolf to shoot Minerva, but is killed by Gordin, while Wolf takes out the ballista.

Ok, let's use the save point, and proceed with this thing up north!

Caeda hits level 15 in the arena, gaining HP and defense, as Wolf moves forward to lure the enemy sniper as the rest of the army moves forward. The sniper obliges, and is killed by a critical shot from Wolf in retaliation. Wolf levels to 7, gaining strength, speed, defense and 2 points of HP!

Hmm, now I face a problem. Jake and the second enemy ballistician have overlapping fields of fire, so I won't be able to take out the enemy without Jake shooting at me.

The red zone is what the second ballistician can hit. Wolf is just barely outside that, and can shoot the first ballistician without trouble, but one space forward is where the Sniper can reach... it's complicated.

There is also an enemy manakete (I realized later it was the enemy general, and a regular cavalier was sitting on the throne this map) and three cavaliers in the area, all of which could be a threat if I'm not careful of their threat ranges. So... Caeda needs to get in and talk to Jake without dying, maybe Draug can draw fire?

Caeda hits level 16 in the arena (she won't move up until I'm fully prepared) and gains strength, skill and luck.

Ok, I send Cain, Wolf and Draug into the danger zone, and Cain takes all the ballista shots, which miss. The manakete then hits Cain for 17 damage, and on his retaliatory strike Cain lands a critical hit! The manakete is left at just 3 HP, and the three enemy cavaliers move towards us. My turn. Cain, retreat! Abel, kill the manakete!

Abel the dragon(kin) slayer.

Good job Abel! Level 12 Abel, gains HP, strength, skill, speed and defense. Wolf runs from fort to fort and attacks the 2nd ballistician. All the foes go for Abel, the ballistician hits him, Jake misses. Abel kills one of the cavaliers, but the other two leave him on 5 HP. Wolf kills the second ballistician, Draug kills the second cavalier, Athena moves up and kills the third cavalier, and... Abel retreat! On the enemy turn, Jake hits misses Athena, but hits her after I rearrange my forces a bit. However I move her to a fort where she automatically regains some HP each turn.

Ok, here's the critical moment. Caeda is up... but her movement is only 8. She can't start the turn out of Jakes range and move to be within the safe zone next to him in one turn. So there will be one turn where he can shoot her, doing triple damage with his Arrowspate weapon. If he hits, she dies, which is unacceptable. Ok, here goes. I'm nervous. I move her in and leave her in a fort for the extra defense... and he kills her. I have to start over from the save point. I guess at least I used it?

Ok, my notes are a string of expletives (literally) for a line or two at this point (I do hand written notes for this game then transfer them to the computer) as I rant a bit about how his hit chance was only 56%, which means it's almost a coin toss about whether he hits her or not, and how am I supposed to do this?

Alright, take 2!

Caeda levels up to 15, but gets no stat increases this time. I guess that's my penalty for having her get killed in an alternate universe? Ok, Wolf goes for his draw out the sniper tactic... and the sniper gets a critical hit and kills Wolf. Welp.

Take 3!

Caeda hits level 15 again! She gains HP, skill and luck this time. Wolf and Draug take out the sniper. I notice this time that the sniper has a Killer Bow, which gives it +20% critical chance, so it actually has a 1/4 chance to critical me. So the first and third times I actually got really lucky with that! Wolf hits level 7 again, gaining HP, Strength, skill, defense and luck. He has great level ups.

Draug lures out the manakete, and the enemy ballistas shoot him and do... zero damage. Even on a hit! Linde finishes off the first ballista and hits level 13, but I accidentally click through too fast and miss her stat gains. Ok, Cain and Abel guard Linde and Wolf from the enemy cavaliers, and then Abel and Draug kill one cavalier, and Wolf and Athena finish another.

Caeda hits level 16 again, gaining luck.

Ok, so new strategy. Everyone pulls back, and Draug just lumbers around here killing the second ballista and taking the hits from Jake until he runs out of ammunition (he has 17 shots remaining). Meanwhile, Caeda continues to grind at the arena, and then when there is no threat she will go talk to Jake.

This works well. Draug kills the second ballista with a critical hit (after a few regular hits) taking off the remaining 2 HP with triple damage, and levels to 11, gaining HP and defense. Caeda levels up to 20, capping her skill and luck as well as her speed, but gaining only a single point in strength that whole time. Her defense isn't bad though. Lena gets to be level 5 in this whole process, and I send Minerva down to train a bit as well, since she's level 1 (though as a Dracoknight she's already promoted). Minerva hits level 5 by the end of it.

Caeda finally flies over to Jake and talks to him.

No chance Jake, you're not adorably flustered like Roger was.

She tells him that Anna is worried about him, but wonders why he's fighting for the wrong side.

Jake is glad to hear Anna is alright, he was worried about her. Caeda assures him that Anna will love him if he joins us, and he agrees to do so for Anna's sake.

Jake can talk to Marth. Apparently Jake has been to Altea before, and asks Marth is he has been to the secret shop there.  What follows is my favorite conversation so far.

The shop that shall not be named.

Marth: "The what?"

This is a thing in other Fire Emblem games, wasn't sure how far back it went (or if it was added after the fact to this remake?)

Jake explains the shop entrances are disguised so you can't see them, and you have to have a VIP card to get in, but they sell great stuff!

The best question in the entire series.

 Jake isn't actually sure how the secret shops that only let certain people in stay in business. Actually, he thought he'd heard they were desperate for customers...

A sound suggestion. Maybe they should just join my convoy! I'd give them tons of arena money...

Minerva hits level 6, gaining HP, Strength and skill, and we take over the throne spot.

We captured the palace gates! But Marth warns there are still enemies inside we will have to root out, and they have captives from the Archanean army. Nyna wants to free the captives, and Marth promises we will.


Chapter 12: The Ageless Palace


Introductory text gives us more history. Archanea is 600 years old, founded by Adrah who conquered the city-states of his time with the help of the Three Regalia. The united Archanea then became a great nation, and even helped six independent kingdoms spring up around it, but remained the greatest of them all.

Did I mention I really don't understand the geo-politics of this world? Although in the situation with Altea it's pretty clear that Altea felt itself to be a vassal state to Archanea in some form, based on Marth's earlier conversation with Nyna.

Anyway.

Before the fight I take a spare Rapier I bought last map (shops only sell one rapier per map at most. I have three right now; one Marth started with and two I bought as backups so I won't be afraid to use them.) and spend a loooot of money forging it into a more powerful version I dub the Lightbrand. I'm also swapping Caeda for Minerva, since Caeda can't gain experience until I get another promotion item for her. Also I like Minerva. Let's get started!

So we start outside the palace, and inside we can see some people in a cell surrounded by archers and a mage.

They start out on our team, so I can control their actions, but it's going to take some effort to free them.

Inside the cell Midia, the paladin and Boah, the bishop have a conversation. Midia hears us coming, and is happy to be free. Boah rains on the parade, saying "if the Altean army is here, these soldiers may see us as more trouble than we're worth and kill us, so we're not free yet." Midia corrects him, she is happy that this means Archanea is free at last, and knowing that her death will have meaning. Boah reminds her that Astram would grieve if she died, so she shouldn't count herself out yet.

Also in the cell are two knights and an archer.

A second green haired archer. You're not taking Gordin's spot with those stats at level 8 though...

Decent defense, but Roger and Draug are already my go-to knights...

These two look like they're related somehow, but it could just be their lack of Fire Emblem hair.

Ok, so to the right of our starting position are a pair of thieves with some items they drop if we kill them, and to the left is a passageway blocked by two knights. Past the two knights is a third knight, blocking the way to the prisoners. South past the initial two knights is the boss, some mages, and a room with a general and a bunch of treasure chests. Julian's coming along today!

We start the fight. Ogma moves over and kills one of the thieves, leveling up to 12 and gaining HP.

Cain and Abel move just into position and lure the two doorway knights out. Cain levels to 12, gaining HP, Skill and Defense. Athena kills the second thief, and YEAH LENA KILLS THE SECOND KNIGHT WITH A FIREBALL! WHOOOO!

Lena levels up to 6, gaining HP and resistance.

The turn after I start moving in, two enemy cavaliers and an enemy horseman spawn outside the palace as reinforcements and charge after us. In the south, a named Paladin and two enemy cavaliers also move towards us, as do the two mages in the room just below us. I also have to keep the prisoners moving around, as the two archers and the mage attempt to murder them in their cell. However 3 spots cannot be targeted by the foe, and I swap the prisoners around, keeping them alive until I'm able to rescue them. 

Barst, Ogma and Athena form a wall behind us, driving off the first wave of reinforcements from outside, but two more waves spawn, and also begin charging in after us. Barst hits level 13, gaining HP, Strength, Skill and Defense. He's been pretty consistently great with his level ups recently.

The enemy cavaliers and paladin reach us, and Marth, Abel and Merric work on finishing them off. Marth levels to 11, gaining HP, Strength and Luck, and Abel levels to 12, gaining a point of speed. Merric goes to level 13, gaining HP, Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck and Resistance. Nice one! 

In the rearguard, Athena, Barst, Gordin and Ogma engage in a dance of meet one wave of reinforcements, then fall back to await the second, then dance out and kill them again. Athena levels to 14, gaining HP and speed, while Ogma hits level 13, gaining HP and skill. 

We clear up all the reinforcements, and no more spawn. The mages and cavaliers in front of us are also dealt with, and the prisoners armed with spare weapons I brought from the convoy. but before we proceed, I want to open all these treasure chests... Julian goes in cautiously, along with Boah and Merric. I'm trying to keep out of the general's threat range, but there are about 6 chests, and I'll have to face him sooner or later in this narrow room. Ok, I make a rush, Julian grabs a chest, Boah hits the general from one side, and Merric the other, but he doesn't quite go down. I hope I survive his counter attack...

Oh shoot. I didn't even realize this, but the treasure room is directly above where the boss is sitting, and the boss has a sniper next to him. The sniper shoots Merric over the wall (because Fire Emblem that's how) and kills Merric. I forget sometimes that archers and mages can shoot over walls when they're only one square wide, even when it seems in the abstract they shouldn't be able to. (The map is a top down view, so in my head, I know we're inside a building, so how could that sniper shoot through the roof to hit my person? But it works in the game... I need to remember to take advantage of that when I can.)

Alright, I can't let Merric die (if it had been Boah I might have kept going, the spoilsport).

Take two goes smoothly, and in a similar vein. Ogma kills a thief, levels to 12, gains HP, Strength and Skill. Gordin kills the second thief with a critical hit.

Cain and Abel again lure out the knights, Cain goes to level 12 and gains HP, Strength, Skill and Defense, and Lena hits level 6 gaining Magic, Speed, Luck and Resistance. We fight out way through the first room, a little more smartly this time, as I deliberately put Gordin and a Javelin armed Cain next to the wall to try and lure the archers away from the prisoners to shoot through the wall at them. I'm even better with prisoner positioning to keep them from taking as much initial damage by forcing the mage to shoot Boah the first turn with his higher magic resistance, while the archers can only shoot Dolph and Macellan. 

Rearguard this time also includes Cain and Abel. Barst hits level 13, gaining strength, speed, and defense. Marth hits level 11, gaining HP, speed and luck. I feel like they got worse level ups this time around, but 3 stats in one level isn't too shabby. 

Ogma hits level 13, gaining HP, strength, speed, luck and defense, and Gordin hits level 12, gaining skill and speed. 

I go through the treasure room again, but only with Merric and Julian, with Lena behind them in case. I test the waters with Julian, and guess what? The general doesn't move. I'm able to park Merric two spaces away (and not next to that death wall!) and shoot fireballs until the general dies. Then I decide the sniper is too dangerous not to deal with now... so Julian moves up, opens the door, allowing Minerva to run into the doorway and axe the sniper to death (possibly with help from Merric, my notes aren't super clear as I was playing pretty late last night). The rest of the map is a matter of wiping out some enemy bishops, stealing one last treasure chest from the far side of the map, and then killing the boss. Merric and Abel end at level 13 each, Merric gaining HP, Magic and Luck while Abel gets HP and strength.

Looks like Marth got the final stab. Dohlr may be deathless, but you sir, are not. Goodbye.

Victory is ours! 

Nyna has a gift for us in thanks for freeing her home; the bow Parthia, one of the three Regalia. She says the enemy took the other two legendary weapons when they fled. 

I feel like 'halls of my home" would have been better phrasing than "halls of my house" since this is... a huge palace?

That's right! We all helped! Although I did let Marth get more hits in than normal this map. I need to keep him leveled up with the rest of the army after all.

On to chapter 13! (If I had allowed people to get killed so I only had 15 left again, I'd get chapter 12x, but that really doesn't seem like fun to me so I'm skipping the rest of the Gaiden chapters.)

Chapter 13: The Wooden Cavalry

The design of the ballisticians is really interesting. I imagine they have to pull their carts by themselves, since they don't have horses.

At Fort Menedy we meet Grust's artillery regiment, called the Wooden Cavalry. The map has 3 roads for me to go across all at once, in 3 teams. The north road has two ballisticians, the south road 3, and the middle road 4. The boss isn't too far behind the middle group, also a ballistician, and surrounded by 3 more. Oh boy, lots of ballistae this fight.

I decide to do a lot of prep work for this one. First, I check and discover that I can use promotion items in the preparatory screen, so here's Dracoknight Caeda!

Yay!

Too bad she wasn't movement 10 when she had to talk to Jake. Look at that strength and defense though!

Hmm, I also see Astram on this map. I remember Boah mentioning that name to Midia, so I'd best bring Midia along. Why is he fighting for Grust though? 

So all those ballistae mean this is a bad map for fliers, and I'm not going to be leveling anyone up either. I can re-class Caeda as a paladin, she keeps her high movement as she's still mounted (normally Paladin is a promoted Cavalier) but she's not flying anymore, so has no weakness to arrows and ballista Arrowspates. 

Julian will sit this one out, there's no need for a thief this map. I'll bring Paladin Caeda, Midia... Jake? He is a ballista but he has no ammo. Hmm, it looks like some of the enemy ballistae drop their ammo when they die (I can tell when it's highlighted in green) so maybe if I bring Jake I can give him something to shoot at the enemy. I'll bring Draug and Roger, in case I need people to take some hits. 

One of the chests Julian opened last map had the Boots item in them, which grants a permanent increase to movement to the unit who uses them. I'm tempted to use them on Marth, which would increase his movement from 7 to 9 (9 is how fast my cavaliers go!) but maybe I should save it for a mage or archer, who also have really low move values? (Merric has move 6, and Gordin move 5). I decide at the last second to swap out Merric for Maria, in case I need two healers, and go ahead and re-class Minerva as a Paladin and bring her along instead of Gordin. The more horses the merrier!

I'm really nervous about this one! I had a bad time of it last time I faced a bunch of ballistae.

Ok. Deep breath. With me luck!

Nyna and Marth have a conversation before the fight about the enemy before us, and how to get past them.

What if we build a big wooden rabbit and sneak past them?

Nothing will go wrong. Right?

Marth tells Nyna not to worry about it, the best way is to get up close and personal and try not to take too much damage on the way in. Ok, if you say so Marth, then... CHAARGE! ... Except the healers, you two stay back.

Caeda takes three shots on the south route, but only one connects and deals her only one damage (Paladin defense is nothing to sneeze at). Athena on the middle road and Minerva in the North also get shot at, but they take no damage either. Leaving the flying mounts behind helps keep the damage they can deal me down a lot, and each ballista only has about a 50% chance to hit me.

Minerva, Ogma and Barst clear the north road! And soon after, Midia has a clear path on the middle road to talk to Astram, so let's do it!

So he didn't know she was a prisoner? Is that why he joined Grust's army? Or was he conscripted?

Midia tells Astram that Archanea is free, and he no longer has to dance to Grust's fiddle. Astram says he'd like to break their tyrannical fiddle, and Midia agrees that they can do that together.

Seriously, what happened when Archanea fell? Why did he leave her alone?

Awww, these two are cute.

Midia bearhugging Astram not pictured but entirely canon as far as I'm concerned.

Astram immediately kills an enemy thief trying to sneak past their bonding moment. And he's purple!

Heroes get the big shields.

On the enemy turn, Athena dodges several more ballista shots, but then the enemy boss targets Astram and hits him for massive damage, leaving him on 9 HP. I hope nobody else can see him... no, another ballista sees him. I hope he can dodge... no, he takes 9 damage. Shit! Ok, next time, Astram just runs away. The enemy boss hits too hard I can't let anyone take a shot from that guy.

The second time goes almost the same as the first, except I take a bit more damage on the approach. This time, Marth makes it to the village along the center road before I get to Astram, and meets Beck.

Did you also get a Devil's Haircut, Beck?

Beck has a ballista, and after his humiliating defeat at Castle Deil, has wanted to get back to fighting. So how about it, can he join us? He has thunderbolt ammo, the other ballistae won't know what hit them! 

Ooh, thunderbolt ammunition does triple damage to ballistae! Nice! ... And Beck misses with his first shot. Off to a good start! But at least it doesn't tick off his ammunition count for the miss, he only has 10 Thunderbolts.

There are also two small houses, so I talk to villagers there too. One of them says that this area doesn't really want to be under Grust's rule, and even some soldiers fighting for Grust would rather they weren't, but don't feel they have a choice in the matter. She asks that we please free them to once again live how they want to.

Lena levels up healing us back up to level 7, gaining Magic and Speed.

Beck's second shot hits, and wipes out one of the ballistae on the center path! Athena runs up and kills another one, leveling up to 14, gaining HP, Speed and luck. Roger hits level 7, as he moves slowly up and helps take out a third ballista, gaining HP, Strength and luck. Beck hits the final ballista on the middle road and levels up to 2, gaining strength. The south road is also clear. I recruit Astram, and he runs out of the way. 

Time to play the waiting game. Beck is stuck on the forested section above the middle road, apparently ballistae can't move down the slope to the road (Cavaliers can't either, but Paladins and foot soldiers can...) So it's a few turns as Beck sloooowly moves one square at a time closer to the enemy general, and one of the ballistae in the final area also has Thunderbolts, so I need Beck to shoot first! Finally, Beck takes out the enemy thunderbolts, with one shot at 80%! (Yes, I used one of the save points before he moved, just in case.) Oh, I hadn't noticed before, but Astram can talk to Marth. Let's do that now.

Astram is blunt and to the point.

Fair point.

 Astram says he will follow Marth's orders, but if he finds out Marth has lied to or used Nyna in any way...

Ah! Ok then.

 Marth is calm, and says that in the interest of keeping his head, he has a suggestion for Astram.

Fair compromise? Keep your enemies close? 

Astram agrees. It's kind of nice to have someone not all "Marth you're the best" from the outset though. This even though Marth rescued Midia last map too. Astram, if I didn't already have Ogma, you might have earned a spot on the team. But Ogma and I have a history now, Sorry.

Back to the fight, Beck moves into range and one-shots the enemy commander Grigas. (Again, I used a save point before I moved, just in case. There were only 2 this map.) His dying message is that we will soon face General Camus and his Sable Order, and we will die on the lance of the greatest warrior alive. Huh. I don't know if I've heard of this General Camus before, but apparently he's pretty great.

Now it's time to CHAAAARRRRGE! Beck levels up to 3, gains an HP, and Cain hits level 13, gaining HP, Strength and Speed as the whole army plunges in to kill the final two ballistae and the enemy bishop. And Marth claims the throne. Victory is ours!

Ending dialogue between Marth and Nyna. Nyna congratulates Marth, but notes he doesn't seem as happy as she thought he would.

Is it that villager I talked to? I wonder if this changes if I don't talk to all the villagers.

Ever since his father and kingdom were taken from him, Marth has had nothing but hate in his heart for Grust and Gra.

Nyna asks if these new revelations have lessened the hate and anger that Marth feels.

Is this character growth for Marth?

I like this thought.

And from there, we move on to Chapter 14! 

There are only 25 chapters (not counting the Gaiden chapters) in this game, so we're over halfway through it now!