Friday, October 30, 2015

All Girl Challenge - Fire Emblem - New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow - Prologue

An All-Girl Challenge for another Fire Emblem game, and this time, I will tackle one of the hardest games in the series. Fire Emblem 12, a.k.a. New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow is the sequel of Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. The story of Marth continues after defeating Medeus the Shadow Dragon.

The game never got released outside Japan, so I'm playing a patched version of the game. I've finished the game once, and I can tell that this game is one hard game. The preparation I made is considering the needed characters for the challenge, especially for the final chapter.

This is the difficulty I selected when I first played the game, and I'm selecting the same difficulty for this playthrough. You might think that the game could be easy because it's difficulty 2 of 4. Trust me, it's not.
I'm picking classic mode, to preserve what Fire Emblem is made to be, having the permanent death.

There would be some rules for the challenge.
  • Females ONLY (with the exception of Marth).
  • Forced deployed units are allowed to help the unit until the end of the chapter.
  • Since there are no female thieves, thieves are alllowed, but only on levels where they are needed.
  • The required units for recruiting of others, are allowed. (Julian to Matthis, can't remember if there are other ones)
  • The lack of healers is not an exception.

My avatar is a female, since it is an all girl challenge. Her name is taken from the Japanese name of the protagonist of Final Fantasy VI. She has no ponytail because I just imagined her being in this game after the events of FFVI, where she removes her ponytail.

From the survey for character creation, these are my answers:
  • Merchant's Child (Luck +2; Resistance +2; Luck +5%)
  • Beauty (Skill +1; Speed +1; Skill +10%; Speed +10%)
  • Recluse (Strength +15%; Magic +15%)
My starting class is a myrmidon, for some reasons. At least there is a reclass system to help me max out the stats as much as possible.

Say hello to the 4-unit team for the final chapter of the prologue:


I chose her as a myrmidon for the speed, but it seems speed won't be helping much in the prologue chapters. I let Tina do most of the work of finishing off enemies so she can level up fast enough.

One sentence. My unit is already way better than him.

Caeda gave me a hard time on the chapter where Jeorge is the boss unit. One hit and she's down. She's one of the best units for mage busters, but still not so good because of her low strength early in the game.

Cecille joins late in the prologue, and she's only level 3. Keeping her alive is one hard job to do, because of the small number of units. She disappointed me on my first playthrough because of her low HP. I hope she will be better for this challenge.


Too strong for Katarina / Eine
Going through the training chapters is very hard, especially when only one unit is doing all the killing. I wouldn't want to be wasting those precious exp points, so I'm giving them all to the females. Upon reaching Katarina's assault, it wasn't too hard because of my unit.


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

All Girl Challenge - Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn PART 2

Part 2: Of Countries and Kings

Part 2 of the game, I did not really have a hard time with the all girl challenge, since this is where I started focusing on the female characters in my first playthrough. For some reasons I really like using female characters.

Elincia is now the Queen of Crimea, but some of the dukes wants to steal the throne from her because they think she does not rule well. The story continues...

Prologue: Begnion dracoknights are trespassing Crimean borders. They even insult Queen Elincia, and wants to take Princess Leanne for selling.

On my first playthrough, the sky battle is pretty challenging. On my second playthrough, I learned to abuse Canto and Leanne's Vigor Galdr. The enemies are mostly wiped out when Haar came, making him useless in this chapter (which should be the case). The big mistake of the boss is kidnapping Leanne in the first place. Marcia was able to finish him off easily because of the speed penalty.

Where's Leanne? She's traveling with the boss. Goodbye, boss!

Chapter 1: In the village where Nephenee and Brom live, the rebels are recruiting more soldiers for their cause to overthrow the Queen. Thanks to Nephenee's suspicions...

The chapter is somewhat hard because of Nephenee doing most of the work. Brom is just used for emergency like protecting villages from the "brigands". If only Nephenee reached level 20 Halberdier in PoR (only 19 with some maxed stats, I cried), this would have been easier for her. I spared some of the rebels for the bonus exp which will be used in the endgame.

Heather is also a big help, but the priority of the exp points goes to Nephenee, because she will be one of my units that will "tank" enemy attacks in Part 2: Endgame.


Chapter 2: Nephenee, Brom and Heather arrived to Castle Crimea to report the incident to Queen Elincia. Lucia decides to find proof of the duke's plot. Lucia finds the proof, but then...

Fog of war made the chapter a bit hard, in addition to protecting Leanne. With only a few female characters, minus Lucia because of her high level, progressing in this chapter is slow. The absence of healers made it even harder, because Nephenee, Heather, and Lethe all have low defenses.

Somewhat off-topic.
"And they said I don't learn/gain anything from playing"






Chapter 3: The Royal Knights storm the place where the duke resides, to arrest him.

I did the same strategy with my first playthrough, this time without Denvad and Makolov. This means Marcia is now one of the tanking units. Thanks to her sweeping streak in the prologue chapter, she can now dodge most attacks. Astrid has the Canto and Paragon skill, so she levels up fast thanks to this formation.

Geoffrey and Kieran are required units, so what are they doing? They come in battle unequipped, so they receive attacks (and dodge most of them). Geoffrey even leveled up because of his dodging. The only annoying part of this chapter is the Canto ability that the enemies abuse, like in every chapter where most units are of cavalry.

The Other units look like idiots. Enemies are approaching and they don't move an inch. I set them to Halt. Gotta have all those exp points.

I spared some units in the upper walls, also for the bonus exp.

The formation for this chapter.

Endgame: Elincia takes Amiti, and joins the battle to defend her kingdom from the duke and the rebels.

Lineup pretty small for a defend mission.
One thing I hate about this chapter? Crossbow users. They can instantly finish off Elincia and Marcia. These also have good hit rates, so any tanking units will surely take a beating from these.

Nephenee, Heather and Lethe defends the left entry point, while Marcia defends the right entry point with the Other knight units. Calill fires off the meteors then helps Marcia in defending the right side. Elincia mostly heals but also attacks when needed. Leanne is also there to help units use a second turn to attack or heal, especially Elincia and Marcia because of their Canto ability.

After a short while, the royal knights arrive. This is where the defenders decide to turn the tides and charge the duke. Who does not want high EXP to be received?

Here are the stats of my units just before landing the final attacks on Ludveck:
Being a Path of Radiance transferred unit, Marcia performed extremely well in this playthrough. With high movement, speed and strength, she can finish off enemies and go back to safety thanks to the Canto ability. She just needs to be careful around bows, crossbows, and wind magic.

Nephenee is one of the units where I almost cried because she did not reach the level cap of 20 in Path of Radiance. This means her capped stats meant nothing for this game. She could have been a better unit. She still is a good unit to have, being a semi-knight. Just wait when she promotes to Sentinel.

 
She may be a not-so-good unit, but she still does her job. I mainly use her to steal items from enemies, especially those items that they won't drop. She proved useful in the final chapter thanks to her knife throwing, firing them to the archers below the stairs while Nephenee blocks the path.

Do I still have to say anything? She is a useful unit for her ability to use galdr on two units, and go back to safety with Canto. The best part is when she transforms. She can move further, providing more assistance to allies.

One thing I hate about her: losing her transform gauge in the middle of blocking the path during enemy phase. I have to restart chapter because of that. She has good dodging skills, but her attack is terrible to knights, making her not much of a path blocker. At least the laguz are better in this game, where you can choose when to let them transform, saving their transform gauge.
 Having the Paragon skill in Path of Radiance, who wouldn't say that she cannot reach the level cap? She also starts at a very low level, which means more stat increases upon level up. She is one of my best units, with the ability to use bows, and move back to safety. I just wish she can also use crossbows. Her defense is terrible though, which is normal for bow users.

As the first mage for this story, she is one of the most important units to have, because of the need for knight-busters. Decent stats all around for a mage. Just don't let her receive attacks from long ranged attacks like javelins and hand axes.

Elincia is also a Path of Radiance transferred unit capped at level 20, but the transferred stats are terrible. Her transferred one is magic, of all possible stats to transfer. Her unique weapon is very useful. Just imagine a brave weapon which has unlimited uses. Who wouldn't want that? Her only problem is dealing with crossbow users, which can potentially OHKO her.



I did this before and doing it again with the exact characters to finish off Ludveck. Elincia will first use the Amiti and leave 1 HP, for Marcia to finish off, because the other units of the team are far away. I also will finish him off, though not required, for the good EXP given.
Ludveck surrenders, but did Elincia really succeed in defending her kingdom?

Ludveck had set them up, turning the tides to his favor no matter what.
Now to sit back and watch a very epic scene of...
I shall first put this challenge on hold, until I transfer a television to my workstation, and become less busy. Probably be back finishing the rest of the game during Christmas break.