And so the battle begins. Or, well, the fighting of enemies. We've got a ways before we actually get an overarching plot.
This is the Greil Mercenary's fort. We're on top of a mountain of some kind. Pictured: more than half of the entire population of this fortress. How the buildings are set up is left unexplained.
Meet Titania. Titania is Greil's second-in-command. We'll be using a lot of her.
Ike, meanwhile, is being thrown into the deep end in terms of mercenary etiquette. How he got this far without learning that the company are ready at the break of dawn is another matter, though. Perhaps Ike earned this one. He is dismissed so Greil and Titania can continue to discuss deployment.
Bandits are prowling the country. Why are they doing this? Because bandits are always the first enemy you fight in Fire Emblem. The socio-economic implications of banditry go generally unexplored by the Tellius games, and in most Fire Emblem games in general. For now, apparently there's enough bandits that this is good work for the mercenaries.
There are three jobs today, and while Titania deals with one alongside three rookies, the three-man team of Greil, Shinon and Gatrie can handle two. Shinon and Gatrie are perhaps being a little oversold by the game here, but the class balance of the series accounts for some of this disparity. Some.
And off we go.
Here are "the brothers". Boyd, we've met, and Oscar is the overall responsible older brother. Not that he doesn't have good reason for this.
Ditto
---
This is Caldea. Being on a mountain-side cliff over the water is actually pretty cool visually, though I can't imagine how the people who live there feel.
To fight off the bandits of Caldea, we have to Seize. This is a pretty weird victory condition for this concept, but the opening maps don't really have a ton of maps that would make good Seize conditions. The next Seize map will be Chapter 9.
To win a Seize map, Ike has
to stand on the red square and hit the Seize command. The boss that
stands on the tile will not move, and Seize tiles give passive healing
to boot. Unlike the GBA games, though, it doesn't offer innate terrain
bonuses, so no +30 avoid thrones to worry about or anything.
This will be our unit of choice for the first six chapters. Titania is the only woman swinging a weapon around for the Greil Mercenaries. She will suffice. Although admittedly, compared to a character who is raised from a low level to 20 before promotion, she's actually a little underpowered. I normally don't get lucky enough with my Titania's stats to use her in the endgame, but we'll have a better female Paladin to use there.
The bandits terrorising Caldea are not endgame enemies. Titania will be using her Iron Axe, and also carrying around Oscar's Iron Lance (for sword users) and her own Steel Axe (just in case she can't ORKO with the Iron). Iron Axes are the most worthless weapon long-term, and we'll need all the inventory space we can wrangle in this earlygame.
Oh yeah, this is Titania's EXP gain. Bosses give her actually significant EXP, and a handful of enemies actually give two EXP, but she won't be levelling up this map. You always need 100 EXP to level up.
Ike Visits this village. Villages have a short text about the commoner's opinion on what's going on, and you get an item for your time. The villager who gives you this kinda lampshades how weird it is he's holding this.
The chief bandit notices that a mercenary band has come to put a stop to his mischief. I wonder how he expects to win with Titania in this party, but I presume he lives in the more realistic version of this universe where Titania is skilled but not overpoweringly so.
This bandit decides to burn down that house in front of him to punish the villagers for hiring mercenaries to drive them away. It's impossible to save this house (this is turn 1).
He swings his axe and this is what happens. I missed the act as it happened. Impressive he only burned down this house. Two tiles is a bit too far for a fire to cross.
This is the other house you can Visit on this map. It gives a Seraph Robe, an item that grants +7 HP. I'm not sure what a civilian does with it, but I assume this lady cares more about sleeping at night than it. Probably a good call.
Also, this lady is cute. Fire Emblem can pull up some surprisingly attractive generic designs.
Here's a good one: this is the class design for a female Villager in SoV. At least, I think it's a used sprite.
Anyway, we're done with this map. This guy is the boss. Titania one rounds him exactly. The idea behind the game giving you Titania is that she's your get-out-of-trouble-free card, something Three Houses kinda doesn't really have an equivalent for. I normally speak up against the sort of gameplay style where you actually extensively use this kind of unit, but hey, the rules of the All-Girls run dictate I use Titania and only Titania for now.
You'll never catch me using Seth, though.
Oh yeah, Ike needs to Seize. I actually forgot to bring him up until the end. Ended Turn 5, though- I didn't forget for long.
In terms of our run, he didn't do much, but story-wise, he did just kill his first man.
Ike is comparing himself to his dad. Living up to a man like Greil must be a pretty tough burden to put on yourself.
Not the response I'd choose. To be fair, I'm not sure how Titania planned to end this sentence.
Neither is Ike. I'm not sure if the game ever comes back to this thought. I can think of a few answers, but which ones Titania knows about right now are another matter.
This is quite the comic way to describe the first time you saw death, Boyd. On the other hand, when we find out the family situation of the brothers, perhaps that wasn't the best way to phrase that... but still.
Ike is now a mercenary! Well done. He has taken his first step into a further world.
Citation needed. Mist's cooking ability is a trait that varies from
conversation to conversation. I assume it's meant to portray her
starting bad and getting better, but if that's the case, we shouldn't be
counting on a good meal from Mist right now. Oscar's a good chef,
incidentally, but fair's fair on him not doing the cooking here. Though for what he contributed to this battle, perhaps he was better off doing that...
We get Bonus EXP after every map, but only on a second playthrough do
you get to see this screen about how much and from what events. For now, it'll just be
turncounts. How much you get depends on your difficulty. For Chapter 1,
you get 300 EXP on Easy, 200 on Normal, and 100 on Hard, losing -15, -10
and -5 respectively for every turn you dawdle past Turn 4. How much BEXP we have exactly doesn't matter much, because math, but we want more rather than less. As you'd expect.
...You know, we'll do two chapters a post at the start here. We're not exactly doing gameplay.
---
Wonderful title.
This is Rhys. He's always been here, just sick. Apparently this is common
for Rhys, but since he's a peripheral character, this never becomes
important or anything. He just isn't a very physically fit person.
Titania wants Rhys to be careful, but Rhys also wants to get back into action. He has a bit of a point, though- if he just sticks around the fort, he's not going to get that much better.
Rhys also accepted a letter at some point. He's apparently been on his feet around the front of the fort before coming here to Titania.
I find it remarkable that a man can just walk up to the fort. Then again, with a skeleton crew like the Greil Mercs, I don't know who's on guard duty.
The game lingers on the Caldea mission for a little bit. I wonder what
the bandits were actually doing there. It must be some kind of hostile
takeover or something, those villagers sound like they were being
terrorised long term. Maybe there's some political crisis that the people smothered over with the word "bandit". Probably overthinking things, aren't I?
...That's not a thank you letter.
Well, that's serious. Also... bandits kidnapping people because they lost? Kidnappings are not unheard of for Fire Emblem bandits, but it does kind of betray the actual reasons for medieval banditry to raise the stakes.
One nice thing about this plot point in comparison to... most media is that both Mist and Rolf are kidnapped, and the threat is spread between both characters equally. The more common approach to a kidnapping plot is to just take Mist and possibly make a few cracks that should not be addressed at a fifteen year old girl. I choose not to say Fire Emblem has ever done this in the past.
Bandits walked up to Mist and Rolf, grabbed them, and walked off. What
everyone else was doing was another matter. Hopefully they were on a
mission or something. The conventional explanation among the fandom is that they were at Caldea when this was happening, but this isn't really supported by the text of the mission itself.
Unusual for a Fire Emblem group of bandits to include someone that doesn't look bad from the word go. Usually you get nigh-deformed faces, or at least heavily scarred, toothy and generally unkempt.
This really does feel less like proper bandits and more a concentrated evil group. As far as this game is concerned, though, this is just business as usual for bandits.
Ike, of course, is ready to go do something. Because, well, this is an entirely reasonable situation to decide to do the reckless thing.
This is a good point, though. Even ignoring things like "chain of command" and "hostage situations are delicate", Ike, Boyd and Oscar aren't exactly the Greil Merc's best soldiers. Not that this is going to stop anyone.
Bye, Boyd.
Bye, Rhys.
Oscar didn't want to be left out.
---
Ike stops running recklessly into danger, because it turns out he doesn't actually know where the bandit stronghold is. Boyd is as amazed as we are.
...The pot, calling the kettle black. I've never seen a black kettle.
By the time Oscar catches up, he is happy to point Ike and Boyd in the
correct direction. Presumably there's a map or something in the initial
letter. Wonder what the bandits were planning if things went their way.
That would require a new stronghold, since there's a map to the old one.
Welcome to the bandit stronghold. A single shack and a slight hill. Hopefully this isn't the bandit stronghold. If only for their sakes. Imagine being a force nearing two dozen people and living in a shack that big.
The bandits make it clear they're interested in the whole pack. Well, I say 'whole', but Titania is the only person missing from this group that they're interested in. They clearly knew where we lived, and yet they're not interested in Greil or the other two people we haven't formally met yet. Then again, maybe they know their limits.
It's a remarkable show of self-restraint that Mist doesn't actually break
out of a shack that weak on her own. Or maybe they tied them up properly. The Fire Emblem engine has very few ways to convey that.
You call this hostage negotiations, Boyd? If you're going to charge recklessly into danger, at least let Oscar and Rhys do the negotiating!
...Soldiers from nowhere! And the grid has been drawn. And we only have four boys. Well, this is the exciting part of the run: running the hell away from enemies that can barely be considered threatening. Don't expect a perfect turncount at the end of this mission.
Meanwhile, in the shack:
Oh yeah, this is our first time properly meeting Rolf, isn't it? Could've been better circumstances. Rolf is the little brother of Oscar and Boyd, and the reason Boyd is as fired up as Ike is to go on this rescue mission. For now, he's a bit of a wimp, not that it takes much of a wimp to be less badass than Mist. The fact that his portrait has shoulder-guards and those weird cross-chest belts should hint he's not going to stay that way.
If you somehow managed to get Boyd and Oscar killed in Chapter 1,
this dialogue changes so Rolf gets super upset about the fact his
brothers are dead, and Mist apologises for being a little insensitive- another reason the bandits couldn't have done the kidnapping during the last mission, else Rolf wouldn't know this.
I'd have considered killing the brothers this run to show that off, but while I
can't guarantee everyone is going to see the credits roll, I'm not that
bloodthirsty. Besides, I need the inventory space.
Back outside the shack, Titania has managed to catch up with everyone, notices Ike on Oscar's horse and Rhys on Boyd's shoulders cowering in a corner, and polishes up her axe.
These bandits are no more prepared to deal with Titania holding an axe than the ones occupying Caldea.
There's a brief Talk you can have between Ike and Titania. And by brief, I mean "pictured is almost the entirety of it." This turn, Titania Talks to Ike, attacks that Fighter next to her, and uses up remaining movement to stand next to the myrmidon. Boyd is too far away from where he needs to move for this to protect him, but the thought was there.
Jumping ahead to the boss, since the most interesting thing in the interim was that one time I stabbed a myrmidon with a lance instead of an axe...
May the blessings of the goddess be kept from you for all eternity!
Titania has opinions about this situation. Also never really
thought of Titania as the type to throw out a templar quote. The
religion of Tellius isn't as big a subject as it is in Three Houses (no
Fire Emblem game ever is going to be more religious than Three
Houses), but it is relatively big, plot-important, and Tellius is the
only game in the series to name the "Goddess Icon" statup item after the
local goddess (in this case, "Ashera Icon"). Surprisingly, Three Houses
didn't spring for the same thing. Admittedly, I'm not sure how I would've handled that particular situation myself.
Remember how I mentioned bosses give a chunk of EXP? Titania got enough kills across both maps to get a level after all. I want her to gain Strength and Skill for Chapter 8, so it's nice to see them here.
Boyd is probably supposed to be full of it, but honestly, base Boyd was probably better than these bandits. If you're playing along, hopefully your Boyd's gotten some Speed- that'll make him truly earn this comment.
Titania doesn't hesitate to remind them that they did disobey orders.
Rhys and Oscar try to take responsibility, as the people who understood what they were doing while they were doing it. Titania decides to defer punishment for a better time and place.
...Oh yeah, we were in the middle of a hostage situation. I wonder where this guy was while Titania was swinging around her axe.
Also, I know the grid-based system has limitations on what it can portray, but surely they could do something to better portray that this bandit has Mist and Rolf in danger.
Bold words. Ike has forgotten one important point, though...
...Mist and Rolf will still be harmed, regardless of what Ike does afterwards.
Titania decides to comply with the bandit's request. If you have an eagle eye, you've probably spotted why.
Also this. Titania is probably a better hostage negotiator than Rhys and Oscar.
You mean to say that the kidnappers broke their deal? Hold on, let me find my surprised face...
...Wait, the bandit said 'whiny brat'. He was going to kill Rolf, rather than Mist as implied by his earlier threat. I choose to blame the limitations of the grid-based medium for this not being the clearest thing ever.
In the shock of almost getting an axe to the face, Rolf has collapsed. I think most people would do the same thing. Why Mist is running a medical diagnosis is another matter.
The whole "Unknown" thing is kinda strange on an aesthetic level. It's not like Shinon's portrait is that obscured.
Oh yeah, it's Shinon and Gatrie. Those mercenaries the bandits didn't account for and are above their skill level. Who Titania probably spent the first few turns gathering to have a trump card to deal with this hostage situation.
Poor Gatrie, not getting to be a Big Damn Hero. Sorry, buddy, in this run, that's never going to change.
This point doesn't really get its due, in or out of universe, so I think it bears mentioning: without Titania, one or both of the kids would've died here.
Ideally, Ike would learn from this, but if any of the game's missions
highlight a more circumspect approach to dangerous situations, they
don't beat you over the head with the lesson or anything, since I can't name an example.
Never let it be said Ike doesn't give as good as he gets in this sibling relationship. Ike is characterised as blunt and not particularly colourful, but he really does get some witty barbs to throw out at people layered under a level of snark.
Yeah, lost three turns. That's what happens when the only unit you allow yourself to use appears part-way through the mission.
Next time: A cause worth fighting for.
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