Not that kind of flight, sadly.
Ike and Greil are sparring in here. Seems a peculiar use of time, but I never understood these mercenary types.
Mist comes to tell everyone Elincia woke up. I wonder how long she was out for.
Elincia was clearly out of it, so she just assumes the first person she sees is her rescuer.
So, even though he's a commoner, he's still going to be called Lord Ike? Don't change too quickly, Fire Emblem.
Well, now we know where Ike's bluntness comes from. We know she's related to the Crimean Royal Family because of the uniforms on the corpses, which isn't a pleasant conversation.
Well, to be honest, Elincia is taking a huge roll of the die right now, there's nothing to lose. Two of us are former Crimean Knights, which tips the odds in her favour, but I don't think Elincia could know that.
You could probably count the number of characters with middle names in Fire Emblem pre-Three Houses on one hand. Three Houses added like fourteen.
...Actually, come to think of it, I don't think Greil was ever a Crimean Knight. Or really in a position to learn much about Crimea's workings. I think that's Titania and Oscar who might've heard of Elincia before.
This doesn't speak highly of Duke Renning. Literally who would have a problem with this? Which nobles gain from Renning and not Elincia?
Even Greil seems confused by this. This isn't the time to challenge, though.
Well, Ashnard himself was there. This is terrifying on so many levels. Many of them primal.
Like with Soren, this isn't current news. With Ashnard personally leading the charge, this isn't likely to still be the case.
Yeah, Elincia's run out of basically anything to work with. Maybe the clothes on her back.
I think a few of them survived and show up later. The exact composition of Elincia's retinue is a little fuzzy.
Oh, and if you thought this secrecy would keep her from Ashnard, he knows. Do keep this in mind, though.
I'm... not actually sure what having Elincia would give Ashnard. Personal satisfaction and crushing the slight hope Crimea has, I guess.
Elincia was told to flee to Gallia, a neighbouring country with which Crimea is friendly. With the help of the Greil Mercs, Elincia might just live to see it.
We cut to this conversation. Ike and Titania seem to be agreeing that it is, at least, Princess Crimea.
Titania being a Crimean Royal Knight is apparently supposed to be a minor reveal. Never mind the boss conversation Titania had with Maijin on the topic.
I'm not sure whether Shinon was drunk or sober when he did this. I could believe both.
...Bit of an unnecessary sideswipe there, Titania. But yeah, Titania is a Former Crimean Royal Knight, but she doesn't exactly let it define her. If she wrote a resume, "Crimean Royal Knight" would be tucked on the back page.
Titania does recognise the family resemblance. Titania herself retired from the Royal Knights... well, I'm fairly sure it's while Ike and Mist are very young. Elincia doesn't have a confirmed age (damn artbook holding out), but her Apparent Age puts her at one year older than Ike. I imagine that Titania worked for the royal family when they were young enough that Elincia's mother then looked like Elincia now.
One thing that Elincia's request does not do is give us money. Again, all Elincia has is the clothes on her back, and harbouring her will make the Daein soldiers angry at us and limit our options.
...Oh, right.
(By the way, I really enjoy the music that plays in these situations.)
So yeah, we'll actually be fighting on this map! Good use of resources.
War meeting time. Probably not the best time, but we have to do it now.
Daein soldiers: "D'OH!"
Greil likes to hear everyone out first. I think this time it actually is everyone, but later on it gets trimmed down to Titania, Soren, whatever characters are relevant to the current plot, and occasionally Mist.
Titania comes out with this one. Reputation is as important as immediate wealth. Though how much of a reputation we're going to keep is a bit of an open question with Daein running around...
Soren likes playing the evil option.
When was the last time you saw a mercenary in a Fire Emblem game who actually acted like this?
Shinon refuses to do anything that involves going to Gallia. We've barely touched Gallia yet, but it will quickly become obvious that Shinon is a racist of the highest caliber. At the very least, "stinking beast country" is a literal description as much as it is an offensive one.
Gatrie is in it for the attractiveness of the woman. There's like no other neurons firing in that skull of his.
...Says the one doing a run where only girls put in any work.
The same opinion gets two votes. We have a lot of good people in this mercenary crew.
I don't think the healers would be expected to have a different opinion. If your healer is telling you you should turn over someone in your party, you might want to consider changing healers.
To the surprise of the following people:
Because enemy armies can't just have different political opinions, they also have to break all the rules and cheat at every possible opportunity.
It's quiet... TOO quiet...
(The idiot in question is Boyd and Gatrie.)
Daein soliders: getting rid of the bugs to make their ambushes extra spooky. I never liked the animals that chirp incessantly at night time anyway.
Turns out this war council wasn't a free action. We're playing Fire Emblem, not Dungeons and Dragons.
It's strange to hear this out of Soren's mouth when his last meaningful contribution to the conversation was "let's hand over Elincia to the Daeins."
Well, time to fight. That means we get Greil-
Yeah, they really don't want you using Greil. Not like I would have if I had the choice, of course.
I wonder if Greil has Ike's Aether skill for self-healing. We never get a Hero for ourselves, but Heroes can learn Aether. Greil even has a unique animation for it.
I don't feel like the mercenaries coming to attack you is a good impetus for you to make that realisation. These guys, at least, want the princess alive and kidnapped.
This is the Conditions screen. On it, you can see a grid with all the units. We have to defend (stop any red units from standing on) the green tile for six turns- after that we win automatically. There will be reinforcements in both the west and the south- the east will, thankfully, be enemy free. Somehow, we have to defend both of these chokepoints with one unit.
If you're playing in Difficult mode, this map is played in Fog of War. In Normal mode, we won't be encountering the mechanic at all.
These two weapons are droppable. I want both.
Titania's first level, and we're back to my usual standard for her. Defence is always welcome, and I think this is her first point in Speed.
Here's how this situation can go. Those guys in front of me have 6 movement, so they can't actually get to the green tile. As long as the boys keep hiding in that corner, the soldiers will observe that the only thing they can do is attack Titania, and dutifully they do it.
The idea of ignoring Titania and charging the wincon does not occur to them.
This was honestly a surprise to me: despite the battle animation map, I'm still on top of the cliff, I just wanted to knock off some generics at the bottom. Since the boss has a Javelin, he decided to take a potshot.
Titania took a better potshot. Twice.
You know, he drops an Ashera Icon, and he's also a boss, so bonus Titania EXP. Let's kill him while he's here.
Well-used Titania EXP, I might add.
Just baiting everyone in with the Javelin I stole from Maijin. The thing about the Hand Axe is that we need ~12 uses of it for Chapter 8.
One important note for people playing along: make sure Shinon and Gatrie aren't carrying anything you might want in the near future. They're not about to make any items permanently lost, but they will make them temporarily lost. I gave them everything my party can't/shouldn't use right now.
Got the Iron Blade. You have to be a little aggressive to get the myrmidon moving. Blades are stronger but heavier equivalents to Swords, with Iron Blades being stronger than Steel Swords. Mia's biggest problem will be damage output, and this will help immensely with that.
Didn't manage a rout, sadly. Although perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, the ratio of "EXP gained:weapon uses depleted" isn't a happy one.
I mean, these soldiers can go back to their families! Yay!
Yeah. That's what happens when you kill two of their generals for honour and glory. And terrible Titania levels.
And finally the chapter title applies: we'll be taking flight from the fortress.
Everyone can chip in.
Even in a casual playthrough, I'm not sure how much Gatrie will be helping this cause. Shinon at least has the story power of "shooting arrows severely injuring people" (his gameplay Strength leaves a lot to be desired).
What kind of library does Greil have? Apparently the sort that would very definitely not be safe to have in enemy hands.
"Go have a ship-tease moment or something."
Ike promptly shirks this duty. To be fair, readying a horse is a valid use of Ike's time, but there's something amusing about Ike being put in charge of Elincia and Ike immediately pawning her off on Mist.
Mist is a little concerned about ceremony. Or decorum. Or perhaps her own skill at packing.
You know, I've never thought about Elincia as a cook. Maybe she should've taken kitchen duty at some point. Can't be much worse than Mist.
I can never remember if being able to sew is part of a court princess's life. Seems too practical.
She just lists it off casually here, but this does set up for later...
Elincia notices a trinket of Mist's, a medallion she wears around her neck. Mist decides to let Elincia take a closer look.
This is a cutscene, if you'll believe it. There's some slight movement about Mist's body (I'm not sure whether she's moving her hands or the camera is panning) and the medallion's flames are vividly fanning, but the cutscene itself lasts about five seconds. Yes, this is counted among the six cutscenes Path of Radiance has.
I wonder what the medallion was for. Somehow, I doubt started life as a prize to be won for a sporting event.
"I have a medallion that glows in something resembling fire. Eh, probably nothing important."
Meanwhile, with the villains, turns out those soldiers I spared might not be seeing their families after all.
Yeah, uh... just don't mention all the work was done by one woman, and you might just survive...
Never mind.
Most people don't. Just... the Daein army is insane.
(If you didn't kill Dakova, he would be the one delivering this report and getting dragged off.)
Maybe if you killed fewer of them...
Petrine summons another woman to give tactical advice. At least the enemy army has about the same proportion of women, I guess? I don't think Fire Emblem has really made any of the faceless bosses women outside of pegasus knights yet.
Logical deduction.
The Daein army in general is rather racist, but Petrine sounds rather jovial here. Turns out she personally has more of a bone to pick than her comrades, though.
Say what you will about the Gallians, though, their strength man-to-man (well, beast-to-man) is undeniable, and Daein can't just go to Gallia and win like they did in Crimea.
Us, too. We're also scary. Of course I meant the royal "we".
And Petrine decides to come at us directly.
This is not good news. Petrine outmatches Titania. Well, gameplay-wise, using the stats they have now.
And even if Titania could go toe-to-toe with Petrine, the rest of the guys will be picked off like popcorn.
That's not the attitude you want to see. It's the sort of person who's going to start breaking when they do fail.
No BEXP this map. Fixed at a certain turn-count and we can't un-deploy units (the way Defend maps give BEXP in PoR).
---
Before Chapter 6, we get our first map section. This is the only one with this panning shot.
No land that is not depicted on this map will become relevant to the game's story in any way. It's vaguely implied there is no such land.
These are the countries we currently care about. Crimea and Daein share only one border- a massive bridge. Fans of Tellius will shiver in terror.
This narration recaps where we started. Here's a good render of Elincia to make it worth your while. (This is also in the intro, I suppose.)
The important part of this narration is to introduce the country of Gallia. This is our next destination, but ultimately, there aren't actually a lot of maps in either game that actually take place in Gallia.
The laguz are described as "a different race", but they are a fantasy race. This difference turns out to be important to discussing Three Houses (which uses actual people of colour to tell stories about racism), but here, we just have fantasy racism.
Crimea and Gallia have been engaged in diplomacy to bridge the divide. "Years" of intolerance is a bit of an understatement: try centuries.
To Gallia we head. That natural border looks nasty.
Chapter banner. A "brief" diversion, you say?
Poor Gatrie. Why did he become an armour knight? All he's done is complain about his armour.
Ah, "sub-humans". The least subtle of all slurs. (Turns out the Japanese equivalent is "half-beast", which is more subtle but about as insulting.)
Ike doesn't know what laguz are, and expects Shinon to tell him what they are. I'm not sure how untrustworthy Shinon is supposed to be to Ike.
Raise your hands if you think this is accurate. Remember that we're inviting Elincia over for sanctuary.
By "characteristics", Soren of course means "the beast tribe can transform into big cats, the bird tribes can transform into birds of prey, and the dragon tribes can transform into dragons." Of course, reverted, there are still physical characteristics to look out for, but...
(Also, take note of the fact that Soren uses the correct term "laguz" here. This also got added by the localisers and turns out to be important later.)
Apparently the homes of the laguz are considered required reading for mercenaries. Geography, I guess.
Well, that's us done. At no point did Titania decide to intervene.
I mean, let's be honest, what were the alternatives? It would be hilarious if Elincia did do something else, though. Imagine explaining that to your boss.
This Petrine segment is mostly to remind us Petrine is chasing us, and also to explain to us that Ena was not hired on Petrine's wishes, though she doesn't regret it.
The edge of a forest is a good place to deploy an ambush. I'm moreso wondering how Daein gets through the forest faster.
Diversion! Cunning plan. Depending on which Daeins bite the hook.
Fair point. We don't have a lot of people, even fewer who can face down Daein.
That said, if we have a diversion that works, that means the other group can face no Daeins.
And this is why I recommended you keep Shinon and Gatrie not carrying good stuff. We'll get their stuff back during Chapter 7, but we can't even steal them like we could for Oscar and Boyd in Chapters 3 and 4.
If Shinon and Gatrie are dead, Greil will do diversion duties personally. Ike is... not impressed.
Ike: “Father! That’s impossible! No matter how good…”
Better mobility, I get. You still have to actually survive the fights.
Greil delivers a triumphant speech that I'll transcribe.
Greil: “Listen up! This will probably prove to be the biggest fight this company’s faced. Remember–you’ve got only one life. I don’t want any of you dying on me. In times like these, it matters not what our blood ties are. We are family. If you don’t want to cause your family any grief, then live! Ike will be commanding the main force. Titania, you’re his support. All right, let’s move out! See you all in Gallia!”
This is our map. We don't have to worry about that west side.
I wonder how many ambush sites they anticipated. Or just how many soldiers they committed to this Gallia approach.
This is a true statement. As long as we don't leave the trees, we will not be approached by the Daeins.
Whether we want to is another matter.
Which bridge? Both the bridges we can see are on the map.
Elincia asks if she can fight. Ike says no. Dammit, Ike, she's good!
Mist and Rolf 'guard' the princess. I have ideas about how this plays out in practice.
[In dull tone] Adorable.
This is the only generic with a droppable weapon. He's also the most dangerous generic, since Poleaxes in this game are Effective against cavalry, and our only unit is on a horse.
The Poleax is involved in a massive name-based localisation snafu. When we encounter Poleaxes in Radiant Dawn, they will not be Effective against cavalry.
We emerge from the trees turn 1. We need to get the enemies charging us. Related, Titania isn't able to block effectively. These trees stuff your movement, but not enough for most cunning plans.
The soldier on his right (not immediate right, but the one further along) leaves the map to obey this order. Kinda cute.
The goal of this map, incidentally, is to Escape by moving Ike onto the yellow tile Emil is standing on. How is this different from Seize? Non-Ike units may Escape before him for BEXP. In Thracia 776, where the Escape win condition was introduced, units that did not escape before Leif would be captured by the enemy and lost until Chapter 21x.
Just because he is the most dangerous generic does not mean he is actually dangerous. Don't let this guy take a swing at Oscar, though.
That's one solution to armour. Titania is worried about ORKOing generic Knights like this one using just Iron Axes.
The idea behind mages is that they deal damage to your lower defensive stat. They also don't really have a ton of Defence. This poor mage is just not in his element.
(Before Blazing Blade, the idea of a normal unit with actual Resistance was a relatively rare one. The earliest games didn't even bother with the pretence that you might get a usable Resistance stat.)
Getting far enough into the map and triggering this dialogue prompts any units that haven't yet been aggroed to start charging you. The soldiers on the west shore will come to us.
Emil is a Halberdier, a promoted Soldier and a class new to Path of Radiance. He's relatively difficult for most people to deal with, but Titania can oneround him because of course she can. She needs the Steel Axe, though, because it is no longer Chapter 2. At any rate, I need Titania to have the Steel Axe to handle that armour underneath the preview window anyway.
(Halberdier, coincidentally, is another part of that massive translation messup with Poleaxes. The GBA games that came out in the west called the horse-killing axe a Halberd, and presumably they needed to change that when the Halberdier came around and couldn't use axes.)
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, won't make it true.
Another point in Strength, that's good. So are these other stats.
I blame the first turn of moving around getting a little awkward, but Boyd cannot Escape this turn. Since Ike can and we're not playing Thracia 776, we'll leave him behind.
There is a formula for whether you should wait for units to Escape or end the map early. With the information I had, ditching Boyd was the correct call. There's one slight catch. It won't kill me or anything, though.
Riding on the back of Titania, Ike. That's not exactly a difficult map the normal way, either.
I don't have experience going to other countries, I can't say.
Never let it be said Soren is entirely heartless. ...Well, OK, he's probably worried about Greil and Shinon's sword arms.
"We just sent him to fight off the Daein hordes. He'll live."
No man left behind. Sorry, Boyd.
Again, who out of Rolf, Mist and Elincia is doing the defence? This isn't a nitpick, I just want to know who the badass is right now. Mechanically, all three of them are good units.
...Story wise, I'm thinking Elincia did the fighting.
Mist wants to stay with Ike. She has a bit of a fear of her family dying without her.
Her portrait actually flashes to change. I'm surprised they even give Mist two portraits.
Is anyone else getting the sinking sensation that this assertion is going to be tested?
Implying she's been doing anything but.
They switch to a different scene of sorts for this. I presume this is because of dependencies with whether Oscar and Boyd are still alive.
Boyd doesn't seem like he wants to be in this conversation.
If Rhys is alive, Elincia gives him a weapon. Hope you haven't been using him as a weapon mule!
Mend is like Heal, only stronger. Specifically, it heals by 20+Mag, compared to 10+Mag for Heal. It also has half the casts per staff.
Elincia prays to Ashera here. Fire Emblem doesn't usually dwell on religious portents unless the religion itself is going to be important- think Naga from Archanea or Mila and Duma from Valentia. Something Three Houses does about religion that these instances do not is discuss the ramifications of a JRPG religion on its practitioners. This one line may legitimately be Elincia's only expression of her religious views.
There's those bad vibes again.
Fingers crossed. How hard can it be to find Dad and his trusty sidekick, the giant pile of armour and testosterone?
So yeah, the turncount for this map is 9 turns, and I did it in 7. If I had waited a turn to let Boyd go first, I would've gotten the full 60 BEXP for Ally Escaped and the full 300 for Turns to Clear. At any rate, if you are losing BEXP for turncount and want to decide whether to stall for Escape BEXP, letting two people escape is equal to one turn's worth of BEXP on all difficulties (and I think Ike counts?). There's one more Escape map later, but that one has a different formula.
Next time: Somebody dies.
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