Glad to see we're coming out swinging with the whole "Sanaki is a good person" thing. I find it interesting that the game lingers so long on this point- admittedly, they do need to make it clear that this sympathetic character who has nominal authority over the bad guys is actually doing enough good to still be sympathetic.
The twin evils of corruption: greed and racism.
Lekain is the focal point of all this senatorial action.
And, well, what part of Begnion is going "actually, let's peacefully resolve this conflict with the laguz". Does anyone in Begnion remember why we started this war in the first place?
Zelgius's involvement makes me wonder, though...
Yeah. That.
I think the arrow goes all the way up to where we are. We haven't made it to Tanas.
All right, we need a better idea.
Excellent idea, now, to have the river between us as a proper defensive line!
...Oops. Well, now what?
Time to break a deadlock.
Huh, they use different shots of this camp.
You got this far and are giving up entirely?
What about us?
Ranulf's doing the responsible thing of not letting the Gallians march into the waiting arms of a foolhardy death, though.
Ike defers to Ranulf's judgement on this matter, since it's technically his decision.
...I don't really feel this is reflected by what the narration told us?
That's... a way to phrase that.
Tibarn's back. No Naesala, it seems.
So what the hell happened?
Whatever it was, it must be big. Tibarn needs to pause for breath!
This is a huge moment that recontextualises Tibarn's sudden appearance, but they have to use Tell instead of Show. I'm not entirely sure why, though.
Fire Emblem hasn't exactly shied away from sprinkling a little blood on a sprite. Admittedly, there's only one major instance of it, but there's always time to shore up your expressions.
(...Also, Lucia's talking sprite was considerably less dirty than her cutscene model in 2-E...)
I mean... what's the alternative? Tibarn just... fell into a bleeding corpse?
Oh hey, Reyson is also here. Surprisingly for Reyson, he doesn't actually join our army for a few chapters. Presumably he's hanging around Tibarn's team.
Janaff and Ulki trail behind.
Reyson's very worried about Tibarn. A really bad sign.
I'm sure Reyson won't bother him that much...
All right, so what's the story?
I just love the "Again?". Says so much.
So Naesala sold the hawks out to Begnion. We don't get to hear much about why for a while- and I don't mean "what's Naesala's deal", I mean "what's Naesala's version of this transaction?" Payment, blackmail?
Apparently Zelgius's arrival is news to this party. We saw him in the Central Army, but perhaps he was too small to pick out in the lineup.
Zelgius is exactly the commander we can't handle.
And not only that, he's very good. "For a beorc".
He can go toe-to-toe with Tibarn! What does that say about the rest of us?
あいつ、ベオクとは思えないほど
恐ろしく強かったぜ。
化身した王と…まともにやりあって
一歩も譲らなかった。
下手すると…
あの【狂王】アシュナードの
上をいくかもしれねえ。
Janaff can't even believe this man is a beorc! He also appears to make some kind of reference to Ashnard.
...The hell?
...The fuck?
So this is quite possibly one of the... strangest plot points in the story so far. "Save for the elderly, women, and children" is a very large population of Phoenicis to still be alive, especially when Phoenicis is currently at war and many of the fighting age laguz are going to have been with Tibarn. In the past, I have joked that this incident counts as a double homicide, or at most a mass murder, but the plot kinda... well, OK, it doesn't use the word "genocide", to my recollection, but it sorta feels closer to them talking about one than the alternatives. I am eagerly awaiting what the extended script has to say about it. But this is probably the plot point I feel Tellius handles most poorly, almost exactly because of how forgettable it is.
- Ulki:
- …王の決断は早かった。
あれほどの腕を持つ男の言を…
疑う余地はなかったからな。
一昼夜かけて舞い戻った祖国は、
出発した時とは似ても似つかぬ有様で…
……焦土と化していた。
- Ike:
- まさか……全滅…か？
- Janaff:
- いや、それは免れた。
おそらくあの男が、
無益な殺しはさせなかったんだろう。
国を守ろうと抗戦した者以外は…
老人、女子供は、
無傷のまま近くの島に逃れていた。
Phoenicis was burned down and it must've looked awful, but the same "elderly, women and children survived" clause is there (but it specifies these populations fled rather than being actively spared). An active military population was left to defend Phoenicis and be wiped out to a man, at least.
Naesala has still gone and ditched us, though.
This is sort of what I mean by the whole "not using that word, but..." I would not call destruction that specifically spares all the civilians to be anywhere close to "wiped out".
And yet here Tibarn is, talking about how Phoenicis's people are so few in number. Don't think the game is going to be above using them as disposable green units later, by the way.
...Phoenicis has an "in case of genocide, break glass" switch? OK, I guess I can believe it, but...
A perfectly reasonable reaction, I say sarcastically.
"Kept you waiting, huh?"
And now we can get back to having this war we fancied.
Hawks also give us tactical options. Like flight.
This is a scene on a map, but this won't be voice acted.
This is our tactical meeting.
Soren's plan is for Ranulf to keep Zelgius and anyone else competent on their toes and not doing their job directing the enemy forces.
It's... not going to be the only thing we do.
Skrimir is starting to get tired, but Soren is getting there as fast as he possibly can without being interrupted.
Soren's plan is for Ike to attack something else. Something much more disruptive than Zelgius.
Duke. Seliora.
Tibarn is squeeing inside.
Duke Seliora will call for help if he's got an Ike in his face. And "help" is the Central Army.
Zelgius not only won't do it, but honestly isn't really in the position where he can make that argument.
With Zelgius completely removed from the battlefield, our forces start to look superior to theirs.
So what do you reckon?
Skrimir would rather be doing other things, but if we can use this "tactics" stuff to claw Begnion faces off, then tactics it shall be!
Ilyana took on the entire south herself, while everyone shared around
One conversation today. Things have slowed down now that everyone's had a turn.
Tibarn is really happy with Soren's work.
I'm sure that's the only reason, Ike.
"Especially considering you're apparently at a premium on fertile men."
I don't really think this is a response that reflects the whole deal with Phoenicis. Already the game is not sure what a) the scale of the damage was and b) how seriously they're going to treat it.
Skrimir: "Does the plan involve me killing Begnions?"
Soren: "Yes."
Skrimir: "I like this plan."
This is a bit of a weird base conversation, because on the scale of Skrimir's character arc, this almost feels... too early? Skrimir really takes a shine to how effective Soren is, but not ten screenshots ago he was like "Beorc tactics are the weapons of cowards". I feel like a step is missing here.
Perhaps there's more briefings we're skipping over, but I have no idea what they might contain.
Skrimir likes Soren. And considering Skrimir's a laguz in power and Soren's a Branded... that could mean something one day.
Charmed? He was honestly already there from the word go. But it helps that now Skrimir is eating out of his palm.
Which also says a lot about Soren, to a degree.
Soren's gotten... a lot better around people. Not just laguz, but people.
This is one of those thoughts that's really a "come back when you know what Soren's story is."
Now you're thinking that? The Mad King's War did quite a lot of good for Tellius, even if it did air out some dirty laundry that got some wars started here in RD.
So you reckon we can say the same about this one?
...Who knows. Far too early for that sort of talk.
Nephenee picks up a level, because of her overall stat biases, and then I have a look at my units and see which ones will be using the BEXP hard.
Starting with you. This is the obvious place to start.
Just crank it up this far, and...
Three perfect levels.
Resistance is now capped, and HP is two away. It's honestly a bit of a waste to finish the job with BEXP- Ilyana will probably cap her HP and then she's just going to auto-gain Luck.
Nephenee's turn. I have enough BEXP to do this, and it might as well be done.
...Well, that point in Magic was mildly frustrating. Nephenee wouldn't have capped Defence anyway, the cap is 24, but still. At least she capped HP and got some decent Luck in the bargain.
And why not? Let's let Mia in on the fun too!
There we go.
Even capped Defence in the bargain!
Not enough BEXP left in the tank for Heather, though. I wasn't planning on getting her to 20, but she does have plenty of caps.
I'm still licking my pocketbook's wounds from the Silver Card, and that's why we can't afford some of this Bargain stuff. The Dracoshield might've been nice, if a tad expensive. Flourish is a skill that allows one to deliberately attack for half damage. Honestly, I don't need to weaken things that often.
Mia picks up some extra swords to make sure she can stay armed.
And Nephenee picks up Titania's Provoke skill instead. Provoke is good for tactically getting enemies into your strongest unit, but you may also want to use it to make sure a sufficiently sturdy unit can get some EXP in.
...Also, she had this skill in our run of PoR and it felt appropriate.
The time for battle has begun!
This map will not be fought in Fog of War. We had enough of that at the start of Part 3. Advance Wars, though, likes its Fog, especially in AW1. They might've been tempted to make this a Fog map.
"Them" being the hawk tribes, who racially cannot see in the dark.
Zelgius keeps in mind that Fog does not scare the beast tribe, and with an intelligent force, the enemy may just have planned for Fog.
"We hear splashing". It's the little things that amuse me.
Semi-randomly, a cutscene! A few of these scenes are in the opening and make good setpieces for ads and such, but... there are eight total in the game, and we get one here?
The two massive armies are marching upon each other. I don't know the specifics, but from past experience with some later maps, I'm fairly sure untransformed laguz can cross river more easily than shifted laguz.
...Um... I don't quite get why you would be waiting?
Our plan shall get underway.
Perhaps Soren should've asked Ranulf about this first.
Ulki, definitely. I'm not sure if the rest of the bird tribes have that good hearing, but as long as Ulki is here, this is pretty clear.
- Ranulf:
- この霧じゃ…
どう転ぶかな
とりあえず 上に合図よろしく- Skrimir:
- さて…
お手並み拝見といこう
I think this happens to be completely different in JP. Ranulf comments on the fog, at least.
No one asked you to sit while you waited.
Most people like to mock this line for the hammy delivery. I've got to say, the clunky way Tibarn waves his arm is even worse.
This man is an adrenaline junkie.
And the hawks descend on the Begnions. There are a lot of hawks for a country that just got "genocided".
And the beasts have arrived!
That was an ambitious tiger. Imagine if he actually succeeded. The plot would've just gotten a million times shorter.
Zelgius's spider-sense is tingling.
I wonder what exactly this feeling is supposed to be.
This guy is probably a generic halberdier, but it would've been neat if it was Levail. Perhaps Zelgius stationed Levail elsewhere to spread the competence around.
Whatever it is Zelgius was leaving for, it is now the Gallians.
Ranulf, time and a place, man! On the other hand, could you resist the urge to deliver a quip like this?
When put like that, it's certainly a choice.
This line is also a meme. I don't really know why.
So Ranulf challenges Zelgius to a duel.
Zelgius knows he's competent. That tiger with ambitions? Really just a waste to finish him off so quickly.
Ranulf isn't exactly a nobody in the Gallian court. He's not the strongest fellow around, but he's tougher than your average kitty.
Showing the transformations in detail always gets kind of weird in these cutscenes. Often they just skim them, but there's always one in both games where they really pull out the Animorphs cover.
Zelgius accepts Ranulf as his match.
We can only hope Ranulf comes out of this alive.
Dude. You're in a war party. There are going to be battle noises.
There's a reason that hasn't been done yet, you stupid-
I promise you, you need a better beauty regimen.
Veyona rolls his eyes.
A hawk drops off Titania, horse and all, while unshifted. I don't think shifted hawks have the Con to Rescue Titania, but if they could, this is mechanically doable- losing your shift to below the Con of your passenger doesn't force you to drop them.
"Now that we're right outside their camp, let's discuss the plan again."
Translation: The victory condition is to burn these crates. It doesn't matter what the Begnion army is looking like, we win as soon as the crates are burnt.
The gate has like 20 HP. Admittedly, Heather can't actually open it with a Bronze Knife (which I found out the hard way), but...
This is a thing we can do. I still don't fully understand why. Honestly, though, I think the horses did actually do something impressive this run, so can't knock them too much.
Translation: As much as they deserve it, you get BEXP for not killing them. I'm not 100% sure who the Senators on the map are, since we know there's seven Senators and they're all accounted for in some way. Perhaps one of them is a potential replacement for Tanas?
Translation: There's a turn limit. There isn't any fog, though.
As mentioned, the squeeze has gotten harder, but we're not worried about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment