We are now firmly no longer in Ohma.
Everyone who is still capable of locomotion comes in for the group shot. If you look closely, you can notice that Geoffrey is among them. That's one for the blooper reel.
"As far as Janaff can see and Ulki can hear" isn't exactly small potatoes. There are a surprisingly large number of people that aren't here that are still around, but if we need to repopulate the continent, we don't have enough people for that.
Tibarn's guess is that it is the "strongest" who survived. As reasonable as any, I suppose, but this does lead to the hilarious side effect that Edward survived while the dozens of swordmasters in 3-E who roundly outclass him did not. As a rule of thumb, assume all the named characters were not petrified.
This covers the merchant convoy- Muston, Aimee, Jorge and Daniel. Beyond that, though? The rules are... well, "as long as we don't lose any named characters" is basically it.
63, by my count. It's a little weird to for me to figure, but I think that's all the (present at Nox) playable characters, Skrimir, Sanaki, Naesala, Kurthnaga, Ena, Almedha, Pelleas, Muston, Aimee, Jorge and Daniel. This is, of course, assuming that I haven't missed anyone in that list.
I don't think it's the number of us that are still around, just the power of our dames and damsels.
Sothe continues to be very confused about the woman running around in Micaiah's body.
Several times, he has a very one-track mind for this.
Good question.
Hi, Yune! Sorry to admit it, but that doesn't answer the question.
So, is Micaiah still here, or...
Apparently yes.
Yune needs to loan someone else's body, and in order to communicate with people, chooses a human body. Micaiah volunteered for the thankless task.
So now... what the hell is a Yune?
...The dark god sealed inside the medallion, of course.
Yune rejects such terminology, of course.
I like how positive many of these words are. Yune is Chaos itself- the spirit to defy your set path, the whims of emotion, and the strength to stick by your convictions.
In essence, Yune is what makes Edelgard a hero.
You see, we have this legend that the Dark God brings calamity, and since you're the being known as the dark god... you can see where I'm going with this, right?"
"Turning people to stone" is not in Yune's toolkit. Well, it might be, she just doesn't have the strength to pick up the tool.
...Our deity just zapped us all, ladies and gentlemen.
Sanaki, whose job description is literally "tells people messages delivered straight from Ashera herself", objects to this on principle.
Unfortunately for her, however, things are a little more... complicated.
Both Yune and Ashera's descriptions are supposed to be neutral, but I do kinda feel like the words Yune to describe Ashera here are more negative than the words she used to describe herself. Maybe that's more on my biases than hers.
For what it's worth, the Ashera present in Heroes delivers this speech in one of her voice clips, and chooses different words in the English version (they look to be the same in JP).
I am... restraint. Order. Stability. History. Resolution. I am Ashera.
This is a really good question.
This is quite possibly the worst follow-up question you could've asked. We've already been over this, Ike.
Dark bag of organs, nice one. I feel like there's a few people who'd appreciate being called that.
Ike has absolutely no idea how to take this form of rejection. It's not really the rejection that gets Ike, it's the fact that Yune is taking this like a child.
I think Mist's reaction basically sums up anything I could say. Well, aside from the fact that I feel like there's a bit of a missing secret about the world of Tellius that drives this decision.
And that secret is hidden here. Mist's affinity for Order, and its continued unexplained status within the world of Tellius at large. With everything Mist has going for her, one almost gets the impression that she's got some role in Ashera and Yune's story, but she just... doesn't. There's a part of me- the part of me that came up with the lion theory- that reckons Mist was originally supposed to be the character that eventually became Part 4 Micaiah, but the story as currently written does not work if you try to make that the case, unlike with the lions.
アスタルテは私が嫌いだけど、
私は【正】の気が好きよ。
だからあなたにする。
本当は、鷺の民と話したいけど…
あの子たちは、あなたより
もっと【正】の気が強いから。
私が近寄って具合が悪くなると
可哀想だから、ね。
Talking to the herons would be even better, but Yune's presence is so toxic to herons that this isn't happening.
Mist tries to take this in stride. Tries, mainly.
Ashera and Yune are exceptionally close. Yune, like a magnet, is attracted to Order. Micaiah, too, is a pretty Order-attuned character, which is probably why Yune likes hanging out in her body. Since the JP names of Order and Chaos are "positive" and "negative", I have to wonder if these words are used to describe magnetic polarity in Japan, too.
I notice Yune wasn't in much of a hurry to confirm this. I wonder what she thinks she is.
Whatever she is, she doesn't believe she requires formality. Then again, even goddesses can be that humble.
Well, by singing the galdr of release, we've released this imp, at least.
Yune is clearly here to oppose Ashera, which gives us a common goal.
And Yune was the one who spoke through Mist that we should use the galdr and not war. I'm not sure if Yune can enter Mist whenever and just chooses to always use Micaiah or if Micaiah actually does have benefits over Mist, but Yune will never talk through Mist again.
Yune's glad we caught up, at least.
Unfortunately, her plan failed, since she wanted things to not get to this point at all.
The music while this CG is up is "The Goddess Awakes". I actually lingered on this scene to make sure of it- the opening of this song is also the opening of the theme that plays over the attract mode cutscene, but they're definitely different songs.
Pacifism is a very noble cause. Declaring that there would be no conflict is an admirable goal that it's hard to argue against. But it was foolishly optimistic. The instant there was a disagreement that diplomacy couldn't solve, it would either cause a new country to be born or a war to erupt. And, of course, this counts the people like the Begnion Senate.
Hey, don't judge us.
...
...Too harshly.
The Begnion Senate kept their iron-cast grip on their avarice and dragged everyone into fighting over their messes. And now the whole world is paying for it.
The beorc. And the laguz.
That doesn't answer the question of what Yune was going to do about it.
...
Yune please.
The fate of humanity depends on this woman.
Mist is happy to translate if that would make Yune feel better.
So can we answer this question?
Both gods were lying asleep, waiting for either the world war or the galdr of release. Or the 1000 year time limit.
Yeah. That's... that's why we had to use the galdr.
With the galdr, Ashera and Yune were supposed to come to a judgement about Tellius and its fate together. Ashera didn't do that. How rude.
This is something that doesn't really get addressed, but that cutscene after awakening the goddesses between Ashera and an as-yet-unknown character is what was actually used as the basis of her judgment. Which yeah, still didn't include Yune as promised, but she did technically have a consultation.
Yune decides that, if she didn't get to take part in the judgment, she'll overturn the one Ashera made! Mistrial!
Ashera and Yune cannot match each other. But we can tip the scales...
All of us are prepared to do whatever it takes to overturn Ashera's judgment.
Sanaki's still trying to catch up with the whole "everything I've been working towards is a lie." She is only 13, and she's defined herself by the fact she's undoing the corruption in Begnion- and now, well, she's basically been leaving her own corruption in her wake.
That's not going to stop her doing the right thing. That's just going to make her second-guess herself at everything else.
Sothe is like "uh, guys? Weren't we just in a war with each other?" For some reason. Sothe, you can take the chance to ignore Daein's Blood Pact and work with the side who... well...
Right now, there are only two sides: "Humanity" and "the destruction of humanity".
Sothe, don't act like Daein is fighting for ideological reasons.
"...I'm not actually sure how this would be done."
At least we're done fighting each other.
It would've ended much worse for Sothe than you, Ike.
Just because everyone's teamed up doesn't mean we're done with switching perspectives, though.
We could use the safety of making sure at least one of us can challenge Ashera.
Ashera is preparing for her second Judgment.
If that happens, we're dead. Or worse.
Yune considers this man, who's been taking charge. She's not entirely clear on what's going on, but he seems important in this army of royals.
Ike, of course, is happy to adapt to however people want to be treated. He's not perfect, but he's open to be told when he's screwing up and fix it.
Yune understands that and allows him to move on.
Yune is going to give Ike some of her power.
This, of course, is none other than...
Ike's plot promotion! And... wait a second...
I am kicking myself. The smart play is to give Ike some BEXP levels after 3-13 and before now (so, before 3-E) because Ike's stats are going to matter later and it's cheaper unpromoted, but I've never actually done that in an All Girls before, so it's clearly not important.
Also, yeah, remember what I said about Ike's left shoulder-guard? The guy had an armour budget and decided to spend half of it on just that left arm.
You wish.
A lot of people linger on "dark bag of organs", but I feel like this line goes underrated.
Sothe insists on staying on Micaiah's team, whichever it is.
That is all right with Micaiah.
No, he can't actually talk to her yet!
I wonder who she's talking to and why she's insisting on this.
Again, Sothe, you'll have plenty of time later, and besides, I'm fairly sure you'd rather talk to Micaiah without Yune hovering over your shoulder.
This screen. This. Damn. Screen. For me in particular, this is the hardest part of the game: How Part 4 goes is entirely dependent on how you do this screen. Even at my fastest, I'm taking like 15 minutes on this screen just... trying to figure out which units I'm actually looking at. I'd say, if a remake is going to fix one thing about this screen, it would be the ability to assign characters to no team, just so I could see how big each army is. And even then, I don't think it would help that much.
The units highlighted in green cannot change party. If there's a pair of characters that is highlighted in green on this menu and weren't in the same party before this, the only chance to build Support between them is in Endgame. Not that Part 4 is the greatest chance to get Support ranks (if two characters meet for the first time in Part 4, they must both go to Endgame to get A Rank), but this puts a greater damper on some otherwise fairly interesting pairings. An incomplete list includes:
- Ike/Micaiah (Normal)
- Micaiah/Elincia (Normal)
- Sanaki/Elincia (Fast)
- Skrimir/Soren (Fast)
- Tibarn/Nailah (Fast)
- Tibarn/Skrimir (Fast)
- Ranulf/Skrimir (Normal)
- Mist/Elincia (Normal)
- Soren/Pelleas (Normal)
- Micaiah/Pelleas (Fast)
This is the formation I settled upon. The girls were primarily chosen for gameplay, and from there, the boys came either because they add plot stuff or based on my own whims of how I imagine they'll be behaving "off-screen".
Silver Army:
- Required: Micaiah, Leanne, Sigrun, Sanaki
- Plot: Sothe, Skrimir, Naesala, Nealuchi, Tanith
- Girls: Marcia, Jill, Ilyana
- Boys: Edward, Leonardo, Nolan, Aran, Haar, Zihark, Kysha
Greil Army:
- Required: Mist, Nailah, Titania
- Plot: Ike, Rafiel, Volug
- Girls: Heather, Meg, Nephenee, Mia
- Boys: Soren, Oscar, Boyd, Rolf, Rhys, Gatrie, Shinon, Brom, Mordecai
Hawk Army:
- Required: Elincia, Lucia
- Plot: Tibarn, Reyson, Ranulf, Pelleas, Tauroneo, Janaff, Ulki, Calill
- Girls: Astrid, Fiona, Lethe, Lyre, Laura
- Boys: Kieran, Makalov, Danved
Brom goes with Meg, Haar goes with Jill, Kysha goes somewhere else so Lyre can escape from him for a little while, and nearly everyone else sticks with the armies they're used to. Not sure why Zihark went with Silver and not Hawk in hindsight.
This scene does not actually have everyone divided by Army yet.
We're splitting in three to avoid everyone dying at once. We don't have three different objectives.
Yune's not going with Silver Army us.
But she doesn't elaborate.
So the bird flying around called Yune is in fact related to Yune. The nature of this bird is another thing they don't linger on, but Micaiah has been guided by Yune's hand long before now.
Micaiah's back in Sothe's arms!
In addition to the label on her portrait, Micaiah can be picked apart from Yune by her eye colour. Micaiah has gold eyes, Yune has red.
Sothe, you need a hobby.
So what's Yune up to?
We don't really get to know what she's doing here, but it's probably helpful.
Ike, if you need her help, that's probably a problem.
At least Tibarn has initiative.
Kurthnaga also has a bit of a clever plan.
Remember sending stones? If we're going to be splitting into groups, why not use these?
"Fortunately", my foot. They actively put one heron on each team to make sure the player couldn't do any "dances for dancer" shenanigans.
We can communicate with each other, but for some inexplicable reason, all three armies have pooled convoy access, BEXP and gold that each one can receive freely.
This shot actually does properly have a Greil Army/Hawk Army split.
I like how they don't even know what Ashera can do and they already have doubts one of them isn't going to make it.
Ranulf runs over here and calls out Ike. This isn't an A Support thing, this is connected to the fact that Ike and Ranulf are locked in different armies.
Ranulf knows something that he needs to tell Ike.
And that is: Zelgius bad.
How bad?
That bad. Some people actually say Ranulf revealing it now is kind of a spoiler for a later reveal moment, but I'm perfectly content with this.
Especially since Ranulf had it figured out already. People would just complain Ranulf didn't tell Ike early if he decided to stay quiet.
Since Ike and Ranulf are now going their separate ways, Ranulf figures it's better Ike knows at all rather than waiting for proof. I'm not actually sure what proof there is for this other than unmasking the man himself, though.
Ike has just been mumbling in the corner, trying to reconcile the man who defined Ike's opposition in Part 3 with the greatest threat Ike has ever faced. Remember how brutal the Black Knight was when he killed Greil? That's the same man who decided to withdraw the Begnion Army on Elincia's surrender.
If strength determines petrification, then Zelgius definitely shrugged it off.
"...What more do you expect me to do?"
Zelgius being the Black Knight, as much of an impact as it's clearly making on Ike's psyche right now, is a reveal that either says a lot or says very little depending on what lens you view it from. When Ike's had a night or two to sleep on this, he's going to care very little about the matter- it's not like he knows Zelgius that well, and other than his honour (which the Black Knight, at least in RD, possesses in no small quantity as well), there's not a lot that Ike really has to think about. From the player's perspective, we are in much the same boat- we don't care about Zelgius enough that we really lose anything from combining him with the larger than life Black Knight character. With that said, however... we now know that Ashnard's most trusted advisor was a Begnion double-agent. The implications of this reveal are staggering once you start thinking about them.
Zelgius being the Black Knight was revealed by Fire Emblem Heroes. While they normally spoil major plot reveals somewhere in major character lines, Zelgius one-upped this much by appearing in his Black Knight armour (Zelgius does use this appearance later on in RD). Many fan sites will also have Zelgius and the Black Knight appear on the same character page, with the ruder ones including the Black Knight as the opening image while starting with "Zelgius, also known as the Black Knight, is a character who..." or so on. Not that fan sites have it easy when it comes to disguises who are characters unto themselves. As such, it's actually not entirely unreasonable to assume a first-time reader already knows this twist. Whether they cotton on to the massive political ramifications is another matter, however- the game doesn't consider those until much later.
Next time: The Silver Army finds out what battles are going to be like in Part 4.
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