In which I unlock a Gaiden chapter by any means necessary.
Chapter 6: Fire Emblem
The introductory text explains that we shattered Macedon's main force outside Aurelis Castle, but there are still remnants inside the castle, along with some treasure. One of Marth's soldiers (anonymous) says that only a thief could open chests locked that tight. "But we don't have any thieves with us. ... Do we?" I see this anonymous soldier hasn't met Julian.
Alright, battle prep. I get 14 units to take on this map. I want to try getting the Gaiden chapter 6x, but to do that I need to have 15 total units in my overall roster by the end of the chapter. And there's one person to recruit here. So basically, 11 people have to die on this map or I miss the bonus chapter. Which leaves 3 people, plus the new person I recruit to finish the chapter off. Well, I'll use a different save slot, and if this goes poorly, I'll redo it and skip the Gaiden chapter this play through. So I'll bring Marth because I have to, Merric because magic is very powerful and versatile, Julian to open the chests... and then 11 people who aren't going to be in my long term squads who will be sacrificed for the sake of the extra chapter. And see how I feel afterwards.
The enemy boss Emereus calls us rebels and orders his armored units to intercept us while his archers defend the throne and his thieves loot the castle. He's preparing to flee.
Right off the bat there's a locked door in front of us. Julian opens it up because he's a thief, and there's another thief behind it. Marth talks to the new guy named Rickard. Rickard was trying to steal stuff from the castle, but got caught and locked up. He has high aspirations, but to thank us for letting him out he decides to help us out.
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| That's right you'd better come help. We're not doing this whole saving the world for free right? Right? Oh... |
Darros dies first, under a hail of arrows from archers behind the armored knight.
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| Sorry Darros. I liked you. I hope this Gaiden chapter is worth it. |
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| Yeesh game, you're really making this difficult. Why do you have to be like this? |
On my turn, I take out the first knight and some archers, and the northern thief, but enemy reinforcements clog the hallway, making it difficult to press forward... which would be a bad strategy if I were trying to survive anyway. On the enemy turn, the remaining thieves open their treasure chests and head for the exit. Then poor Sedgar also goes down after 3 enemy archers combine fire on him. He goes down fighting, killing two of the archers with counter attacks before the third finishes him off...
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| Hardin goes by Coyote... Don't worry, he'll join you soon. |
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| Right, Roshea and Sedgar both joined with Hardin last chapter. We hardly knew ye |
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| Well, a bit more personality than his soldiers? |
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| Bord was one of Ogma's mercenaries. I guess the subordinates don't get much to say. |
Marth also moves in to support the lines, and also gets to level 6. He gains HP, Strength and luck. That's better.
Vyland dies as the next batch of defenders arrive.
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| Ok, it's getting less impactful and more repetitive. |
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| No Phoenix Downs in this universe |
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| Oh! Personality! Right, he was forced into this when his city leaders threw in with the bad guys. I'm sorry you won't be here to take your city back. |
Cord is able to finish the archer off, completing our revenge for Wrys.
The enemy thieves try to sneak past us, but Marth, Julian and Rickard catch them and kill them. Oh good! They automatically drop the treasure they stole straight into our inventory when they die. We finish off the remaining enemies at the cross roads and move down to the throne room, where two armored knights, an archer and a mage await us. And I have two more people to let die... so Jagen charges in, dealing damage left and right before he's taken out by the combined efforts of the enemy knights and archer.
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| We will Jagen. We will. |
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| He stole Bord's dying breath as well as his name! Or was it the other way around? |
Ok, Merric moves up and kills the knight in one shot (magic totally ignores their high defense). Marth runs in and kills the archer. The enemy mage moves down and almost kills Marth, leaving him at 6 HP. Julian then runs over and kills the mage. Yay! I pulled it off!
Julian hits level 5, gaining HP, Strength, Skill and Luck. That's a good level up!
Merric hits level 7 and gains HP and luck. Seriously? No Magic? No Skill? Your green hair won't make up for everything you know!
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| Oh they tried, they really did |
Rickard runs down and gives Marth the Armorslayer sword he pulled off one of the thieves. Armorslayers are extra good against enemy armored units like knights... and the boss Emereus is a knight. Marth runs up and kills him, almost dying from Emereus's counter attack but pulling it off because he was fast enough to get a double attack in. Marth levels up to 7! And gets NO STAT IMPROVEMENTS! MAAAARRRRRTTTTHHH!!!!
Chapter over! Thank goodness.
Cutscene. Nyna arrives... and we install her on the throne? I thought she was princess of Arachanea? Although I guess Hardin is dead and he was technically the king's brother. Oops.
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| Seriously, Marth walked down the steps and let her past to sit on the throne. |
Ok, so she tells Marth that Arachanea's burden has been to protect the world in times of crisis, but Dohlr laid waste to their kingdom. Nyna feels she is powerless to stop the ruination of the world.
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| I mean, we were doing that already... |
Marth says yeah, but Altea swore fealty to Arachanea long ago, and have always kept that vow.
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... I do not understand the politics of this world.
Anyway, Marth says it is in his blood, the blood of Altea, to destroy Medeus as Anri did long ago. Annnnnnddd... we have a game title! Nyna presents Marth with the Fire Emblem.
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| Is that a Fire Emblem or a cooked turkey? I guess I don't know what a Fire Emblem looks like... |
Fire Emblems are bestowed by House Arachanea only upon a true champion with the power to save the world. Having it bestows the right to open treasure chests across the land and wield the precious items within.
I thought having thieves gave us that right already? Well, maybe not the right... or maybe these are special treasure chests?
Alright, time to see if my digital blood sacrifices were sufficient.
And they were! Don't worry all you dead guys, it was not in vain and we get Chapter 6x, the first bonus Gaiden chapter!
Chapter 6x: In War's Grasp
The introductory text tells me that soon after we captured Castle Aurelis, a messenger from a western village arrived pleading for help. Pirates had invaded and were kidnapping the village children. Marth rides to the rescue!
Alright, when Wendell died in the last chapter I remembered he mentioned the City of Magic and wanting to oust the ruler there when we recruited him, so I looked it up. Having Wendell is not necessary to any of the recruitments later in the game. In fact, it looks like Marth or Caeda are pretty much the only people I need to recruit 95% of the recruitable characters in the game. There is one future character who will be necessary for one other future recruitment. Furthermore, there are 4 more Gaiden chapters. And all of them only unlock if you have 15 or fewer total units available. Which means to get the rest of them I'd have to keep... killing off... all my people. This might be easier in an Iron Man run where you never reset, and/or on the various hard modes that unlock, but I'm doing this for a casual play through just to get a sense of the story (future games are set in the same world, though not all of them take place here). And each Gaiden chapter has one new recruitable character, in Chapter 12x, Chapter 17x, Chapter 20x, and Chapter 24x. And Chapter 25 is the last chapter.
Man I don't like this. This is a really bad way to do Gaiden chapters. Let it be having leveled a certain person so high, or take a particular person to a specific village in a previous chapter. I feel like making me have fewer units rewards me for playing badly, not for playing well, because if I play well enough nobody dies. Or for doing Iron Man runs I guess, but then, why add the save points mid chapter? There's also a suspend option so it's not like those save points are necessary if I get interrupted or something. And it looks like the Gaiden chapters were all added to the DS version of the game, and weren't in the original NES game. So none of them are necessary for the story.
Anyway, this seems like not a fun process to me. So unless I play really badly in the future (honestly badly, not deliberately badly like I just did) I'm skipping future Gaiden chapters. It's just not worth it the way the game is set up. I know the Gameboy Advance games did Gaiden chapters differently, it's just weird this is how they chose to add them in a future remake of a past game.
Anyway, let's see if the character we get in 6x was worth it all!
We meet a village elder talking to a woman named Athena.
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| Well she has more personality than Bord... |
Athena explains that she was saved from drowning by the villagers. Although she's barely recovered, she wants to go rescue the kidnapped children. The village elder urges her not to go alone having barely recovered from her ordeal at sea, and to wait for the messengers they sent out to bring back help. Athena agrees to wait... but if help doesn't show up soon she will not sit idly by. I like her.
We start out in the southeast with a number of enemies in front of us, as well as two unclaimed forts. I put Julian and Navarre in the forts to draw out the nearby enemies and take them down a few at a time. Gordin gets to level 5 and gains HP, luck and defense, while Navarre hits level 6, gaining HP, Strength (yay!), Skill, Speed and luck. Lena, healing in the back ranks, levels up to 7 and gains Skill and Luck. The enemies are all called ruffians, though they have a mix of axes and swords.
We move north along a river. Gordin stays behind to have an archer duel with a ruffian archer across the river.
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| ARCHER COMBAT! *music plays* |
Marth heads to the village and we recruit Athena. I'm just going to let the dialogue speak for itself. (No pun intended)
Ok, I think she was worth the effort. I love how confused Marth is by all this, and how Athena is like "You're a prince with an army? Well, if you say so, but I doubt it from the look of you..."
As we advance on the pirate hideout, Julian gets to level 6 and gains HP, Skill and luck. Caeda reaches level 7 and gains Skill and speed.
Shoot, I moved without thinking and Navarre just died. His final words are "Hmph. Pathetic." I agree Navarre... I was grouping up before crossing the final river, and Navarre had just done some heavy fighting around Athena's village. Lena hadn't caught up yet to heal him. I didn't pay attention to the threat range of the enemy across the river. An enemy archer sniped Navarre down to 2 HP, and then an enemy mercenary ran up and cut him down (even though I thought "DODGE" really loudly in my head...)
Ok, that was my mistake. And I forgot to use a save point so I'd have to redo the entire map. I'm going to leave this one... sorry Navarre. RIP bishounen sword guy. Athena is a sword user too though, so she'll take your spot on the roster.
We finish the map up without any further trouble or mishap. Wolf reaches level 5 and gains HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck. Wolf is awesome. I like the mounted archers too, good movement and good range are a great combination. Gordin hits level 6 and gains HP, Skill, Luck and Defense. Good! Some friendly competition with Wolf maybe? Barst hits level 7 and gains HP, Strength and Luck. Well, he could use some skill... he hits hard but not accurately. Maybe I should try this re-classing thing with Barst, see if he can get some skill?
Anyway, we finish the map, and Athena agrees to come with us.
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| Best joining conversation ever. |
Onwards to chapter 7!
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