SS Endgame Ephraim: Dark Emperor

So Eirika found the final boss to be a little too easy. Let's see if Ephraim has a little more trouble.

But first, time for Ephraim's last goodbye with Lyon.

He has far less patience for Lyon's pessimism that two friendly princes might not meet again.

Lyon is only somewhat reassured.

He's readying himself for the possibility that the two nations will meet in unfriendly circumstances.

Ephraim has the same question I do: What tense circumstances? Ephraim's not interested in picking a fight, Lyon's not interested in picking a fight, what's going to change?

That's Ephraim's good side. He doesn't mince words, for good and for ill.

Lyon, that's not something every prince worries about.

I'm starting to wonder if Lyon had some dark ambitions before opening the Stone here.

Ephraim says this, although I'm still very curious where all the wars that the knights are in and castles like Rigwald and Renvall are built for. They use this sort of thing as a backdrop and don't seem to consider the reasons why it exists. That's honestly a bit of a weakness in FE in general, though.

Assuming neither of you are the ones responsible for this sudden shift. Lyon.

As much as it's Lyon hoping desperately, and vainly, for this to be true, ultimately, Ephraim was the one more hurt by this not turning out as promised.

I don't think anything short of death was going to stop that happening any way.

Although right now, that isn't a pleasant prospect for Ephraim.

Lyon's happy to see him again, though. For reasons known only to himself.

Ephraim's simple approach to life has presented him with a very unique perspective on this conflict: Lyon's descent into the darkness was born of his jealousy towards Ephraim, and Ephraim, if things must be a simple right and wrong, concludes that he was responsible.

Even if the fault is not Lyon's, it's not really Ephraim's. The people with the most blame here are Fado, Duessel, and whichever other figures of authority were calling Ephraim a great King. They kinda deserve it just for that opinion.

It was one and a half. Has half a year actually passed while we weren't watching? That's going to make the timeline so much harder to parse.

Not technically what Lyon felt to begin with.

Lyon also confirms that he never hated them, and that his claim to do so in Chapter 14 was a lie. To what ends? Still a little unclear, but it definitely got the vibes of an uncaring villainous mastermind across early. Sure, those vibes were a red herring, but Lyon planned for that.

Lyon was not driven by hatred, but by envy. He wanted people to say he was the better King. Bit of a mixture of the human desire for recognition and the fact Ephraim really isn't a King worth following.

...As hard as it may be to believe, this makes a lot of sense. Lyon, in a very yandere sort of fashion, is unleashing this chaos to prove himself "good enough", through some nebulous definition, to the twins. He may be aware this is self-defeating, on some level, but all he wants is Ephraim's approval.

Ephraim returns with the same:

He trusted Lyon. He valued their friendship.

And it has led him here.

Just as Lyon trusted he would.

Not that Lyon is going to make it easy for him. I think the time has long since passed where that would be possible.

He still thinks this is going to go his way.

Fomortiis is laughing now, it'll save time later.

Fortunately, Eirika was in the team of 12 already, so this team is fully fighting fit.

My formation, if this has any bearings on the order everyone sounds off in the big battle with Fomortiis later.

Same map, same setup.

...Why does the dragon on the left get a more impressive Wight formation?

...I think the dogs switched sides. I'm fairly sure the Tarvos used to be on the east.

Lyon has seen only +1 or +2 buffs, although his Mag and Res are now an ominous shade of green and glowing. I think the psychological terror of stat caps is pulling weight here.

...Knoll, I think we need to have a word about what Phantom is.

More impressive are the buffs given to these things. 32 Atk means more business than 26, and that HP is now big enough they'll be showing ?? in the battle screens. Until poked, of course, but still. Those Speed buffs won't mean anything, though.

Bolting is no longer a oneshot here, although L'Arachel was always a less effective siege tome delete button than Lute. Her pony's supposed to make up for that.

Eirika, Innes, Joshua, Artur, L'Arachel and Gerik. Lotta swords over here.

Alas, poor Phantom. The real units will have to do the fighting.

Might as well attract the Gorgon's attention. Should probably have done it from a square back, though.

Tethys tells Artur to start looting, for reasons left to past me.

(I really wanna know why I thought Tethys needed Lockpicks.)

Gorgon attracted.

Ephraim, Cormag, Ross, Tana and Knoll (also known as "all the Lance users") watch as the Phantom doesn't attract the Gorgon at all. I wonder if I can give it keys. I don't think you can trade with it, otherwise you could rob it of its axes.

This guy probably wishes he was on the other front, although I don't think that would help him.

Mine now. ...Why?

Artur's going to be attracting a lot of attention on his north side, too.

...Dang.

Yay, saving a Shine use!

...There's a replacement Door Key.

That is a lot more Stone accuracy than they used to have.

Eirika, you're on Chest collection duty. Again.

And since the Gorgon is hiding over here, Innes needs to kill it.

Making sure to avoid that uncomfortably high chance of being petrified and failing to finish the kill.

Tethys refills Artur's inventory with all his Light tomes.

Have a L'Arachel.

This guy really feels weird about which side he's on.

Knoll avenges his replaceable puppet.

Apparently he really liked that one.

The things I do for treasure I don't need.

That is a fancy way of getting this far.

Cormag, you had one job.

Ephraim will handle this. I don't think Tana can reach, although this will make Knoll Restoring Cormag take way longer than it needs to.

Tana meatshields for Knoll.

...Granted, I think "meatshielding" implies she takes the hits.

Finally, all this specialised gear the enemies have been using has worked out for them. Yeah, this guy is being splattered into dust by Ross, but he has successfully mildly inconvenienced me, that's more than Wights have been doing for a long time.

Proof of concept, the dragon is sitting on ?? HP.

And proof of concept, it hurts. More importantly, it hit me. Hitting L'Arachel isn't exactly a guarantee.

L'Arachel happens to double, though, so that's the last we'll see of this one.

L'Arachel works on her own Skill. She is staring at caps, no matter how much we wish she was faster and smashier after seeing her not oneshot a Gorgon.

Tana considers setting up with a Javelin, but that's just not going to do enough.

Told ya we're smashing.

Knoll has his Restore staff.

And Ephraim is doing the baiting.

Cormag, please bring Knoll back with you.

...Cormag, why aren't you allowed to move? Dangit, man, this Petrify really set me back...

Tana sets up for some sort of mayhem later, once Ephraim has started on the dragon.

Extra 7 HP acquired.

And Innes prepares for the left flank to get besieged next turn.

Thankfully, there is a healer ready for L'Arachel.

Perfect execution!

Gerik smash.

And L'Arachel can drop off Tethys as she moves up.

12 damage. Better than Tana's 2, and probably going to make our finishing attack cleaner, but maybe not.

The miss was nice, too.

L'Arachel's having fun.

Right, now this side has Mogalls and the mage is still lagging.

Worse yet, this side has nothing to fight, since their opposite number haven't got far enough for the deathgoyles.

Cormag gets this worthless trinket.

And Ross takes out my anger on this dragon.

Knoll gets Gleipnir back, in a showing of "I think he could reach Ephraim by walking."

He summons bait.

Ephraim readies his Javelin.

And gets some more Strength, because he hasn't capped yet. I think this one's his cap.

Yep. This is the most powerful Ephraim gets.

Tana gets in Support range of Ephraim with her own Javelin. This is probably Ephraim's idea of a date, and the worst part is, I don't think Tana would mind.

Joshua's going to get the dogs into gear.

And the backup squad moves up.

These two have some weird idea about advancing in this direction, but I'd like the archer to stop being an issue first.

Phantom is going to be bait more than once.

Hope you were checking weapons! I wasn't, but I laugh regardless.

Joshua fails to kill the gwyllgi as promised. Hey, it's tough work!

Just two fights.

Plenty more for Tana, then!

...And one for Ross, apparently.

You, go away. (I wish Pierce was easier to screenshot.)

There are the deathgoyles. One of them is probably going to still be alive.

Cormag is helping!

Knoll ruins the perfect kill by critting and overkilling anyway. Better than the alternative.

I'd say Ross is just critting for fun, but he really did need to land a crit for the oneshot.

Ephraim and Tana are already moving in.

And here this side is, probably not even going to open a path.

Especially not if that is going to happen, L'Arachel.

I guess we're deploying the girl squad.

It's profitable for Eirika.

Longbow him...

Slice him...

Demonstrate the difference in these tomes. (I honestly can't tell which is which- the bright white colour is part of why).

I should've used one of the oneshot tomes.

And with that, this side has been cleaned up.

Tethys bolts to this side. This side does have the smaller team.

Elder Baels have no accuracy.

And Gerik forgets he's supposed to be the Hero and not the Swordmaster.

Shadowshot is firing? Wow, these two are closing in.

...Demon Surge, too?

Why couldn't you have got that crit earlier? This elder bael has already gone a round with Ephraim and survived. At least it gives the east flank time to move in.

Tana's turn to take point.

...Please don't.

Sure. Cormag's going to be a good pointman with all those Gorgons.

Knoll takes the Robe.

And some more sturdy people prepare to assist Cormag.

Huh, I actually used Bolting enough to break it. Good to see.

Really shouldn't have tempted that.

Not helping. No, seriously, there isn't enough physical damage flying around up here.

Hopefully this helps.

I can't help but feel like I've sent Cormag to an early grave.

Despite this guy having a Killing Edge and numbers in all three spaces, he will not be worried about this one. Although it was lucky enough to hit us.

That was the other wyvern. Poor Tana thoroughly out-classing Cormag.

Joshua baits!

...As does Artur? Why are you attacking Artur instead of Cormag? Granted, he hit.

This applies to all of you!

That one went for Cormag. Thankfully, we're not going through that again.

Let's point and laugh at this guy, who looks at my army and wonders where all the horses are.

No more Shadowshot.

Knoll is needed to help Artur. That was a close one. Knoll doesn't even get Artur back to full.

Speed!

Taking on the Stone user. Although surely I have a better axe.

Ross can handle it.

...

Go Ross!

Shadowshot is out of the way.

L'Arachel just can't reach anything without angering Lyon. As an anima user, let's not prod that.

Artur has some anger to get out.

...And his level up kinda suffers.

Two of the Wights are down.

Gerik can't finish the last one, though.

Thankfully, the last one goes for Tethys.

Lyon is the one speaking, and this was not what he said in Eirika route. Sounds to me like someone's not in as much control as he thinks.

Ow. Ross is low on Resistance, but at least he has the HP to swallow that.

And also the revolving axe.

Few more Wights showed up.

All gone now.

Knoll Physics again, just in case.

And Tethys picks up a point in Skill from Dancing.

Phantom ain't contributing to this. Maybe if he got a better axe.

Let's do what we were meant to do.

Well... I mean, the cape is probably new. I don't think we really get to see Lyon as Ephraim remembers him. We only see his portrait.

Don't take it too hard. Eirika's a really good duellist, by all accounts.

Lyon is trying to get Ephraim to feel betrayed again, and it's working.

And waxing nostalgia quickly turns into waxing his own descent into darkness. Questions of morality are above Ephraim's pay grade.

I can't deny that. Beating Lyon is a team effort.

With all that said, the fact we have a team and Lyon has monsters we're wiping out with our eyes closed speaks volumes.

Lyon is not an obstacle in Ephraim's path.

...Not that Ephraim acknowledges the fact the only reason he's winning here is because Ross did the hard work.

Ephraim is finally ready to do the hard job.

One quick stab.

At a guess, the part where you woke up the Demon King. No qualifiers really necessary, I wouldn't think.

I'll take those. Might come in handy against Fomortiis.

Ephraim is a gigantic wrecking ball, but in the end, that may just speak more to the fact everyone enables that to happen than to his own skill. Sure, he's good at it, but without Forde, Kyle and Eirika bailing him out, he'd overextend on his own.

Lyon, too, was invited to overextend. Except the people he was counting on couldn't have saved him from what he got into.

That's all the people of Grado seemed to want. They had one of the smartest sorcerers as their Prince, and yet there seemed to be nothing but praise and high hopes laid at the feet of a bash and whacker like Ephraim.

And what you did have, no one seemed to care about.

Ephraim did, though. Ephraim and Eirika both looked at Lyon and saw a kid that had skills they prized.

Although perhaps they never wound up telling him that.

All traits Ephraim lacks.

All traits Eirika possesses, too.

Too little, too late, Lyon realises what Ephraim has been saying all along.

He tries his hardest. Sometimes.

For one thing, he still thinks this is either possible or desirable.

Lyon is too far gone, both literally and metaphorically. It's perhaps for the best he dies here, and doesn't watch Grado get destroyed by the cataclysm he did all this to avert.

And it is left up to us to move on without him. As hard as that may be.

And Lyon disappears. He shall be missed.

Especially since we now have to deal with what comes next.

The Demon King is incoming.

As mentioned, in Ephraim route, the Demon King has a short monologue in this part of the story. It's not an unreasonable assumption that they wrote this first and then the generic "taunting for six separate textboxes" in Eirika route, but I love the latter regardless.

If Lyon is still around to hear this, this must be devastating. I wonder if Eirika route's Lyon has figured this out yet. Whether by being told or through the powers of observation.

The Demon King will be resurrected, and even if the specific cataclysm Lyon saw has been averted as promised, it is unlikely Grado is going to find what comes next pleasant.

Whatever Lyon believed, the awakening of the Demon King was the Demon King's idea. Fomortiis just... invented reasons Lyon would want it and Lyon didn't realise his thoughts were not his own.

The true masterstroke of the Demon King's gambit was the fact he deceived not only Lyon, but the twins, too.

And all of this deception was for this one aim. An aim that has now been met.

The glowing lines on the ground were in Eirika route, too, I just got an on-frame here. I don't think it makes him that much scarier here.

And now he's out in the open...

Now that we can separate the villain from our friend...

With that said, though, the Demon King is a step above Lyon.

...This may be a bit of exaggeration, but he is still accurate that no enemy in the game matches him. Maybe the dracozombies, but this guy is gettting obscene damage numbers against my high-Defence characters, who cares about piercing damage?

Ephraim's gotten a lot stronger since he took over a castle with two cavaliers that only really helped by softening up the occasional Fighter and a paladin that was planning on stabbing him in the back.

And he has a bone to pick with this guy.

Neat how Tethys is the one out of line this time. Not sure which formation is the cooler one between Eirika and Ephraim, but this is definitely the more diverse one.

And we start going over this bit.

"For the first and last time in your life."

Power of friendship?

Power of friendship.

We have significantly less girl power, but we still got our lesbian triad!

...OK, that's the best blink frame. Someone frame that as a reaction image.

Ephraim delivers his triumphant speech.

Any one of us.

And also multiple turns.

...You ever wonder if that's an intentional angle to why Fire Emblem's final bosses turn out so pathetic? Fire Emblem does have "the power of teamwork" as a fundamental theme, what with recruiting people into our army from all across the continent.

Ephraim expresses his power by saying "I'll beat him in a fight". Innes expresses his power by saying "I'm a better fighter". Distinction without a difference, but the two men do have different approaches to their cockiness.

I feel like the real point of note here is that Tana can not only say this when surrounded by some of the continent's biggest badasses, but mean it.

Our Grado soldiers are suppressing all their doubt. Knoll's staring his own failure in the face, while Cormag's just making sure he's not worrying about how he's going to plan for his future.

Gerik's doing his own rallying. Tethys's remark is well applied directly following Gerik's.

Heads. Decapitated heads.

He's... he's definitely the strongest one here.

Contrast Lute, who's just like "oh, I've read about him. So that's what he looks like..."

...Is L'Arachel just always last?

Seth: My only wish is to serve and protect the two of you…

Franz: There must be something that I can do!

Gilliam: We can’t let our guard down.

Moulder: Hm. I wonder if we can reenact the legend.

Garcia: This may be my last battle. I’ll hold nothing back.

Colm: Fighting’s all well and good, but where’s all the treasure?

Forde: We’ve got to do what we can, right?

Kyle: We’re with you all the way, Prince Ephraim!

Dozla: Gwah ha ha! Same goes for me!

Saleh: Hm… Can my magic prevail?

Ewan: I’ll show you all what my magic can do.

Rennac: Come on… You can’t be serious!

Duessel: We must be steel blades with which to pierce the enemy.

Unaccounted for quotes from the C team. See what I mean about Dozla's quote being potentially fun to stick anywhere in line? One day I will figure out how to control who he copies with that.

I am.

He isn't.

But this isn't about him.

No, we haven't actually changed our solution to the Demon King based on route.

We've gotta take out a lumbering hulk either way.

Even Ephraim is concerned.

Oh come on, has that ever stopped Ephraim?

He'll brute force his way past those odds.

The Demon King has again not been substantially changed by route. It is worth mentioning that his obscenely high caps have been raised in the INT version as compared to JP, not that he hit them in JP. Probably explains why the graphics don't like it.

And, because Eirika missed them, Fomortiis's character and class descriptions. His weapons are not altered by difficulty either.

If I wanted, these four could probably deal with the Demon King turn 1.

I just let everyone file up for some EXP first.

Wishful thinking.

Now that's a summoning ritual. Worth noting, because he didn't do it either run, but Fomortiis will move. Two tiles per turn, but you know, just because a guy is four squares away doesn't mean he's safe.

Oh yeah, I've never used this, have I.

Knoll summons a black hole that attracts meteors to rain down upon the enemy. It has no innate x2 effectiveness on monsters.

One of the most appealing reasons to make a Bishop learn Dark magic is that Slayer will inflict x3 damage with this thing.

Yo, your dracozombie doesn't scare me.

Pew pew, it's a Killer Bow fight.

Mine's better.

Not actually a killer weapon, but crits anyway.

...Aw, I wanted another good level.

I wish you wouldn't cut things so close.

Oneshot!

...You don't even double?

Very well.

Go for it, Phantom!

L'Arachel opens fire this time around.

And I just notice that Demon Light is not actually considered Dark Magic, so the Demon King does not participate in the weapon triangle when dealing with L'Arachel.

All she really managed was taking him out of ?? range.

Eirika takes out a bigger chunk.

And Knoll finishes by taking out the gwyllgi.

Ephraim: Demon King… I’m going to kill you!

And just as L'Arachel helped Eirika handle Lyon's inner Demon, Tana shall help Ephraim. Although I can't help but feel I missed something...

Ah, that's better. Please pretend this happened at some point, because Ravager is the greatest attack on Fire Emblem GBA. Fomortiis will even rear back and everything for that heavy punch. Even if he did miss.

Next time: The routes at last converge.