Before this thing spirals out of control and I have to review all of Part 3 in one go, I decided to cut it in half. This seemed as natural a stopping point as any- Begnion is still trying to claw their way to us, but we have successfully made it to Gallia after our attempt at war, and the conflict is about to change shape going forward from here.
This leg of the war has the most simple plot of the whole bunch: We declare war, we march on Begnion, Begnion kicks our asses, we hightail it out of there. However, RD helps make this arc engaging through the character interplay of Soren/Skrimir, Zelgius and the Begnions, and having a lot of fun with making the Begnions a delightfully cruel force that will resort to anything to finally be rid of the upstart laguz. Comically evil is still comic, after all. They also get to show off Soren and Zelgius's respective tactical prowesses, and the limiting factors placed on both of them- Soren has to work around the unpredictable chaos that is Skrimir, while Zelgius has to deal with the unreasonable orders placed on him by the Senate.
One really valuable thing I mentioned once and then set to one side is that this war is being fought over the Serenes Massacre, and how those responsible are still in power in Begnion. This is such a huge deal compared to Three Houses, where Dimitri learned the perpretrators of the Punishment of Duscur were still in power and did bugger all, instead choosing to continue charging at windmills. The Serenes Massacre was a massive deal and continues to influence the plot long after Sanaki apologised for it once. We still haven't seen the end of what the Serenes Massacre has done to the continent!
Skrimir's character arc isn't quite complete- there's one scene where he caps off what he's learned to the lions in Gallia next time- but it's mostly finished up here, and it is fantastic. Skrimir is neither completely deranged at the start of his arc nor a complete paragon at the end of it- both ends of the arc feature a character who is recognisably Skrimir. And yet, the progression from A to B is clear, Soren's influence and his own mistakes have demonstratably affected his outlook on similar situations in the future, and he has meaningfully changed his actions to become a better man and King as a result of what he has learned. Dimitri's character arc is very much based on Ephraim's from FE8, except exaggerated excessively, but Skrimir's is a much more engaging take that the audience needs not set up a suspension of disbelief to fully tackle.
Where does that leave Ike in this mess? Doing surprisingly little for a character claimed to be the main character. Honestly, Ike really doesn't have that much to do in RD- he's done his character development in PoR, he's a living legend in RD and he's largely being used as a weapon by the Laguz Alliance that can shore up the laguz tribe's weaknesses- and even then, Soren's intelligence is better at that than Ike being a laguz who can't transform. Ike's reputation has vastly outgrown the man, and most characters who engage with Ike's reputation are in much greater fear of it than Ike himself.
So how do the Greil Mercenaries play? I'm going to be a little honest... this is probably my least favourite part of the game mechanically. The last non-laguz characters we got were in 3-2, so unless you want to fiddle with the laguz tribes (Ranulf and Ulki are my recommendations), you're going to be bending the game so thoroughly over your knee that the hard part is making sure you have enough gear to complete the maps. Unlike the Greil Mercenary arc in PoR, I don't think any of the missions can be justifiably removed from a narrative perspective, but this still leaves me with a sense that I'm overqualified. Honestly, Normal Mode doesn't really change this- you don't get to Tier 3 until much later into the part, but you're still more than a match for your opponents, you just might have to put a little extra brainpower into it. Fortunately, the second half of Part 3 makes things more interesting by putting all the non-GM parties running around back into play- 3-6 was just the beginning of that.
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