- Joined
- Aug 18, 2020
What is Fire Emblem?
Fire Emblem can be summed up in one sentence as: It's a series of turn-based strategy games with RPG elements. It was released in Japan April 20th 1990 and has had over a dozen mainline games in the series since then. The entry I'm playing is the sixth in the series. One aspect of Fire Emblem that sets it apart is permanent character death. If a character's hitpoints reach zero, that character dies and obviously cannot be used again. Given that FE is very story/character based, this is usually followed by a rage quit and restart by most players (me included).
Why start at 6?
Fire Emblem was not released outside Japan for 13 years. The first English release was the seventh game in the series. As a result, that was the first game the majority of fans played (as least for a while). However, FE7 is a prequel to FE6. Most English-speaking fans started with 7 and then moved onto 6 when they wondered why the story in FE8 didn't pick up where 7 left off. If anyone reading this thread is unfamiliar with Fire Emblem I thought it would be nice for them to experience the two games for the first time in the intended order (FE7 contains lots of foreshadowing to the events of this game, also spoiler: If this goes well I'll be playing FE7 after this one).
Also, regarding spoilers, I ask anyone who is familiar with these games to put future plot details, and details about future chapters, to put them in spoiler tags. Anyone who isn't familiar with these games have fair warning that spoiler tags will be used for their intended
purpose in this thread.
Since this game was only released in Japan, I will be using Gringe's excellent translation patch here
One other thing - I will try to keep save-scumming to a minimum. I will mainly be using them for the arena and certain parts of FE7, if I get there.
Table of Contents:
(OP) Intro
Chapter 2 - The Princess of Bern
Intermission - Where the numbers come from, how they're used and miscellaneous mechanics
Chapter 3 - Latecomer's Sorrow
Chapter 4 - Crumbling League
(Warning: This chapter intro is going to be screenshot city. It's the only chapter that shows where all the countries are located and shows several characters for the first time. I promise the rest won't be this bad)
Opening text scroll:
Man and Dragon once coexisted in
harmony. However, Man shattered
that harmony with a sudden onslaught.
A great war now known as The Scouring
was fought for dominion of the land.
Losses were tremendous for both sides
and this war rattled the very
foundations of the continent on
which they battled...
Defeated and humbled, the Dragons
disappeared from the realm.
Mankind then began to rebuild and
repopulate their newly won land.
A millennium has passed since then...
... culture and civilization to the farthest
reaches of the continent.
possess the most refined culture
in all of Elibe.
is located on the other side of
the continent in the east.
These are the two most powerful nations
in Elibe with the weaker nations
situated between them.
These smaller lands are...
by a number of marquesses that are
bound by a vow of allegiance;
become mercenaries to earn
money to survive;
Although there were occasional clashes
between these nations, the majority
of the people of Elibe lived in peace.
That peace, however, was not to last...
Bern's armies first attacked Sacae and Ilia,
ruthlessly massacring all who opposed them.
Now, Bern is mounting a merciless
invasion into Lycia.
Pherae's Lord Roy was in Ostia, Lycia's
largest territory, when the invasion began.
He had been sent to study to become
the next marquess of the Pherae territory.
has sent for Roy to return to lead Pherae's
soldiers in defending against Bern.
Marquess Hector of Ostia leads the
who is Marquess Ostia's long-time
friend and confidant.
Upon receiving his father's message, Roy
hurries home, taking with him his vassals
The story begins when Roy reaches
the outskirts of Pherae...
Chapter 1: Dawn of Destiny
A bunch of dudes appear outside the castle. One of them pipes up.
Bandit 1: They've all hidden themselves
inside the castle!
*snrk* Oh, sorry, don't mind me. The boss is called damas, by the way - ed.
Damas:
But reinforcements could be
here any minute.
All right, you curs, listen up!
Kill everyone in the castle
while we still got time!
Then we can waltz outta
here with all the loot!
Another bandit appears on the map that I forgot the screenshot:
Brigand:
Let's go ransack the villages
and take everything they got!
It's difficult to tell from the screenshot, but he runs to a nearby village and wrecks. This is something we'll have to watch out for in the chapter proper.
(Inside the castle)
Merlinus: We're under attack by
bandits from Mount Bolm!
Eliwood: Blast it! Were I not in this pitiful state,
I would take care of them all myself...!
Eliwood: Lilina, you must hide yourself.
This castle is going to
become a war zone.
Lilina: No, my lord. I can fight, too!
Eliwood: Don't be absurd. I couldn't face Hector if something
happened to you in my own castle.
Lilina: My father? But...
Eliwood: It's going to be all right.
Roy should be here any moment, so we
just need to hold our own until then.
He'll drive off these dastards.
Eliwood: Send a messenger to Roy to let
him know the current situation!
We need his help!
Merlinus: Y-yes, milord!
Roy and his crew appear to the south. A lone knight rides up to meet him.
Roy: Why are you in such a hurry?
Lance: Lord Roy! Bandits have appeared and are attacking
the castle as we speak!
Lance: He's inside, defending against the bandits' attack.
But I don't know how long he can last with his illness...!
Lance: You must be a knight of Ostia. Lady Lilina is in the castle.
She should be all right. She's with Lord Eliwood after all,
but he can't last forever.
Roy: No...
I shouldn't have let Lilina go to
the castle before me.
And with that, we're thrown into the action:
Whew, you never realize how long the intro to this game is until you make it the subject of your very first screenshot LP. Anyway, our crew is in blue, enemies are in red. Let's take a look at our guys:
This is Roy, the main character. It's game over if he dies.
This is Marcus, a paladin. He's seen some shit. Also, notice the horse on his map sprite down there. I'll explain in a bit.
This is Allen, a cavalier, he also has a horse.
This is Bors, an armor knight. We already know his deal.
Wolt, an archer.
And finally Lance, another cavalier.
If you don't know what all those numbers mean, don't worry. I'll go into them in detail in a later post. All you need to know for now is Str=damage, Skl=hit chance, Spd=evasion/attacking twice in a turn, Luck=evasion, Def=reduction in damage from melée and Res=reduction in damage from magic.
Turns in this game are called phases. Right now it's my turn (player phase). I can move my units around an attack enemies. Once I have moved all my units or selecte "end turn," enemy phase begins. All the emenies will move around and attack me if they can.
In order to attack the enemies, most units need to be adjacent to them
So let's do that. Each unit has a number of squares they can move. The b;ue squares show the spaces Allen can move to. The red squares show the squares he can attack.
Next, I select my weapon to attack with.
Then I get a preview box showing both units' current health, how much damage they'll do, their probability of hitting and their probability of a critical hit, in that order. This is the last chance to back out before an attack if the odds aren't to good.
There's also an up arrow next to Allen's sword and a down arrow next to the bandit's axe. This is because of something called the Weapon Triangle. The three melée weapons (not including bows) have a rock-paper-scissors relationship where:
swords > axes >lances > swords
Attacking with the triangle gives +10 hit, +1 mt.. Attacking against the triangle give -10 hit, -1 mt.
This is what attacking looks like. Since Allen initiated the attack, he moves first, then the bandit attacks. Allen hits the bandit for 11 dmg and the bandit misses.
I move Lance up to finish him off.
Once the first enemy goes down, Damas pipes up again:
Damas: But they'll have to go through
me to get into the castle!
He moves onto the castle gate. True to his word, we will have to kill him to finish the chapter. I move Wolt, Marcus, Bors and Roy down towards the bandit to the south, I also move Marcus next to Roy.
Select trade.
This opens the trade interface, allowing me to move items between units. You can see that Roy is carrying a Rapier, a unique sword that only he can use, and a vulnerary, which restores 10hp, but uses up that unit's turn. Marcus is currently carrying an iron sword, and a silver lance. I trade both of them to Roy. Normally, trading uses up the turn of the unit that initiated the trade. Bur mounted units like Marcus can move again after trading, they just can't attack. I move Marcus just north of the bandit in the middle of the screen and end my turn, beginning enemy phase.
Since the bandit initiated the attack this time, he attacks first and Lance attacks second. He misses Lance, who returns the attack. You may also notice the roots around the bandit. See those trees in the background? those are forest tiles. Standing on one gives +20 Avoid, +1 Def, meaning that anyone attacking suffers a -20 hit penaly and does 1 less damage. If that bandit was standing on a plains tile, Lance would have 100 percent chance to hit.
The bandit in the south attacks Roy:
Oh for fuck's sake. On a 38% chance? Are we starting with this bullshit already? Roy returns fire, bringing the bandit down to 11hp.
All the other enemies move closer to my group.
My turn again.
Wolt attacks the bandit that attacked Roy, bringing him down to 3hp. See the gap between Wolt and the bandit? This is because archers like Wolt have the ability to attack from 2 spaces away (1 space diagonally). The kicker? They can only attack from 2 spaces away. If an enemy moves next to them they can't counter. I plan to have Bors finish him off.
Welp, so much for that. The text says MISS if it weren't obvious.
Roy picks up the slack.
I realize looking at the enemy positions that one of them attacked Marcus on their turn and I didn't screenshot it. Next chapter I'm going to write the post as I'm playing so I don;t have to try to piece the chapter together afterwards.
Anyway, this is the reason I had him trade his weapons to Roy earlier; enemies tend to prioritize units that can counterattack. Marcus has far higher stats than the rest of the crew, for reasons I'll go into at the end of the post, so he makes an excellent meatshield at the start of the game.
I have Lance attack the bandit and gets enough experience to gain our first level!
And it's pretty good for him, too! Each character has "growth rates" for each stat. This is the percentage probability that each stat will increase on a level up. This means a character might increase every single skill on level up, or they might get nothing. Lance has a 40% Strength growth and a 20% Defense growth, so getting both in one level is pretty great.
Allen finishes off the bandit that Lance softened up. I position my guys and end my turn.
One of the bandits attacks Lance and gets a lucky hit in. This one is dressed differently from the others. This is the bandit that wrecked the village at the start of the chapter. He's been making his way towards the other village in the south to do the same thing. If that happens we lose whatever the village would give us for visiting. I have anticipated this and had Wolt make a beeline for the village (which I didn't screenshot
)
Villager: I know this isn't much...But please accept this money
on behalf of all of us. Use it well! [Got 5000 gold]
Not too shabby.
Without the village to attack, the bandit attacks Allen. He hits and Allen misses
Lance finishes him off. All of the enemies in the south are dead.
I take this opportunity to heal and position everyone to bait down the enemies from the north.
They take the bait. Two move down. One attacks Marcus while the other attacks Bors.
Lance dispatches one. Note the x2, which shows that Lance has enough Spd to attack twice in a single attack. In other words he does 20 damage this turn, barely enough to kill the bandit.
Allen softens up the other one and Roy finishes him off.
You can't see it in this screenshot, but Marcus is just far enough north that he's barely inside the range of another bandit.
Once again, he takes the bait. The AI in the GBA Fire Emblem is pretty simplistic. Manipulating them like this is key to basic competence in this game.
Once again, Allen softens him up and Roy finishes him off.
He gets a level too! Pretty underwhelming but that's kind of Roy's thing.
About 80% done with the chapter I finally took a screenshot of the battlefield to show where things stand. Apart from the two bandits at the top there is another bandit and an archer. I use this opportunity to heal up.
Positioning my units to bait more bandits. I won't be this cautious moving forward. It's just that none of the characters are very strong yet and anything can go wrong in these early chapters (remember, permanent character death).
Only one fighter takes the bait. I have Allen finish him off on my turn.
And he gets a pretty good level too! More skill is great for him because his starting skill is so low.
Marcus baits yet another bandit and Lance finishes him off.
Awesome! Strength is important in the early game.
The bandit and the archer reach Lance and both attack Lance. Thanks to my caution this chapter, this is the closest call I've had.
With Lance on low health, I have Allen and Roy finish them off. Only the boss remains.
That steel axe makes him legitimately dangerous at close range. His weakness is that he can only attack from one space away (Rng 1). Bosses that are on castle gates and thrones don't move...
...so Wolt can plink away at him with impunity. That terrible accuracy and low mt. means that this isn't particularly effective, but he can weaken Damas enough for an actually good unit to finish him off.
Gates and thrones have a special property, though. They heal anyone standing on them by 2hp each turn, so that 3 damage that Wolt is doing is actually only 1.
So I decide "Fuck that noise" and have Allen wait next to him. I'm not attacking because if Damas hit him on the counter, he would attack again on his own turn. Allen can only survive one attack from Damas so I wait next to him and counter when Damas attacks.
Gates heal enemies at the start of their turn. Damas' health gets restored to 27hp
He also has an opening quote that I forgot to screenshot (third time's the charm!)
Damas: You bumbling idiots!You can't take down a few pathetic knights?!
He misses. Allen hits him twice, reducing his health to 13hp
Wolt plinks at him again and I end my turn.
That's all she wrote.
Awesome!
Every single map in FE6 is ended by Roy (and only Roy) moving onto the space and selecting Seize from the menu.
Roy: I'm so glad to see you both!
Thank goodness you're unharmed.
Eliwood: Thanks for the rescue, Roy.
Roy: Of course, Father. How is your health?
Eliwood: Well enough. I've some life in me yet. But Roy, do you know why
I called you back here?
Roy: I'm to take over your role by leading the soldiers of Pherae.
We must join the rest of the Lycian Army to defend our people.
Eliwood: Exactly.
As you know, Bern has commenced an invasion of Lycia.
We are honorbound to follow the ancient vows of our allegiance.
Lycia needs every lord's army, and we must oblige.
Roy: Of course.
Eliwood: I'm truly sorry to interrupt your studies and force you into this war,
but I'm not well... I'm in no condition to lead an army.
Roy: Father...
Lilina: My father leads Lycia's largest army.
And I'm certain my magic will be of help to Roy...
Eliwood: No, Lilina.
You must return to Ostia.
Eliwood: With Hector preparing for battle, there is
no one sitting on the throne of Ostia.
It must be an uneasy feeling for the
people not to have a sitting lord.
As the daughter of the marquess, you must
take the throne until Hector returns.
That will put the people at ease.
Do you have any objections?
Lilina: ...No, my lord.
Eliwood: You are to meet them at the border to
Bern. Merlinus will accompany you.
He is knowledgable and experienced and
should be of great help.
Roy: Thank you for everything,
Father.
Eliwood: Don't worry, my son. I have absolute faith in you!
Fight bravely, and show everyone who
the next marquess of Pherae is!
Roy: Yes, Father!
Bors: You needn't ask, milady. I will accompany Lord Roy in his travels
and protect him with my very life.
Lilina: Thank you, Bors. Take care, Roy.
*End of chapter*
Whew. So this is my first time doing something like this; sorry if it's rough around the edges. Each time a new character is introduced I will give their growths and a short description of who they are and what they're good at. So...
Roy
Class: Lord
Weapon ranks: Swords D
Growths: Hp: 80% Str: 40% Skl: 50% Spd: 40% Luck: 60% Def: 25% Res: 30%
Ah, Roy. If you're mainly familiar with him for Super Smash Bros. you may be disappointed. Roy isn't a terrible character, he just isn't really very good at anything. He's basically the Mario of this game. His best stat (Luck) isn't as important for evasion as speed and all his other stats range from mediocre to bad. Depending on how fortune favors us, we might get God Roy or we might get an unusable Roy. There's very rarely any in-between
Allen
Class: Cavalier
Weapon ranks: Swords E Lances D
Growths: Hp: 85% Str: 45% Skl: 40% Spd: 45% Luck: 40% Def: 25% Res: 10%
Fire Emblem reuses character types a lot. Every FE has a pair of Cavaliers. One in red armor, one in green. Cavaliers are mounted units (obviously) that in addition to great mobility have decently high hp and are good with multiple weapon types. The red knight usually focuses on Strength and Defense while the green knight focuses on Skill and Speed. Allen mostly fits but trades Defense for an unusually high Skill stat for a red knight.
Lance
Class: Cavalier
Weapon ranks: Swords D Lances E
Growths: Hp: 80% Str 40% Skl: 45% Spd: 50% Luck: 35% Def: 20% Res: 15%
As a green knight, Lance has the requisite higher Skl/Spd that Allen. He also synergizes well with Allen because of a mechanic I'll explain later. Apart from that there's nothing I can say about him that I didn't already say about Allen.
Wolt
Class: Archer
Weapon ranks: Bows D
Growths: Hp: 80% Str: 40% Skl: 50% Spd: 40% Luck: 40% Def: 20% Res: 10%
As we saw, archers can only attack 2 spaces away (one diagonally). They are also extra effective against a unit type we'll see next chapter. Unfortunately, they are not very useful against much else. Their low strength combined with the low power and accuracy of bows means they'll constantly do little damage and miss all the time. I'm not really a fan of archers in any FE, especially this one.
Bors
Class: Knight
Weapon ranks: Lances C
Growths: Hp: 90% Str: 30% Skl: 30% Spd: 40% Luck: 50% Def: 35% Res: 10%
Bors is a knight. Confusingly, the game uses the word "knight" to mean both Bors' class and the more traditional sense (like Allen and Lance are described as knights for example). To avoid confusion, I'll be referring to Bors' class by its Japanes name - Armor Knight. Armor knights are usually walls of defense and hp and maybe high strength. Bors trades all of that for a really high luck stat for some reason. On top of this, FE6 is a game that really shits on Armor knights. I wouldn't use any armor knights in this game and if I did I wouldn't pick Bors.
Marcus
Class: Paladin
Weapon ranks: Swords D Lances A Axes E
Growths: Hp: 60% Str: 25% Skl: 20% Spd: 25% Luck: 20% Def: 15% Res: 20%
One of these things is not like the others... Yeah if you look at Marcus' growths and compare them with any other character, you'll notice they are roughly halved. Earlier I said that FE like to reuse characters. Well, Marcus is what's called a Jeigan Character (named after his archetpye in the very first game).
When a unit gets to level 10 (out of 20) they have the option to change class to a more powerful one. This is informally called promotion. Marcus is what's called a prepromote. This means he has already promoted (a paladin is what cavaliers like Lance/Allen promote into). Prepromotes generally have lower growths than unpromoted units, so raising Lance/Allen up to a level 1 paladin like marcus has a high probability of a unit with higher stats.
Jeigan characters are prepromotes that the player starts with. Just about every FE has one. An unwary player will see Marcus' high stats and think, "aw yeah," and use him to solo the opening maps. Prepromotes get much less experience per kill than unpromoted units owing to their higher level, so using Marcus exlusively will rob other units of much needed experience down the line. In other words, a beginners' trap.
So yeah, don't use Marcus, and if you do, use him as a meatshield like I did.
Opening text scroll:
Man and Dragon once coexisted in
harmony. However, Man shattered
that harmony with a sudden onslaught.
A great war now known as The Scouring
was fought for dominion of the land.
Losses were tremendous for both sides
and this war rattled the very
foundations of the continent on
which they battled...
Defeated and humbled, the Dragons
disappeared from the realm.
Mankind then began to rebuild and
repopulate their newly won land.
A millennium has passed since then...
... culture and civilization to the farthest
reaches of the continent.
possess the most refined culture
in all of Elibe.
is located on the other side of
the continent in the east.
These are the two most powerful nations
in Elibe with the weaker nations
situated between them.
These smaller lands are...
by a number of marquesses that are
bound by a vow of allegiance;
become mercenaries to earn
money to survive;
Although there were occasional clashes
between these nations, the majority
of the people of Elibe lived in peace.
That peace, however, was not to last...
Bern's armies first attacked Sacae and Ilia,
ruthlessly massacring all who opposed them.
Now, Bern is mounting a merciless
invasion into Lycia.
Pherae's Lord Roy was in Ostia, Lycia's
largest territory, when the invasion began.
He had been sent to study to become
the next marquess of the Pherae territory.
has sent for Roy to return to lead Pherae's
soldiers in defending against Bern.
Marquess Hector of Ostia leads the
who is Marquess Ostia's long-time
friend and confidant.
Upon receiving his father's message, Roy
hurries home, taking with him his vassals
The story begins when Roy reaches
the outskirts of Pherae...
Chapter 1: Dawn of Destiny
A bunch of dudes appear outside the castle. One of them pipes up.
Bandit 1: They've all hidden themselves
inside the castle!
*snrk* Oh, sorry, don't mind me. The boss is called damas, by the way - ed.
Damas:
But reinforcements could be
here any minute.
All right, you curs, listen up!
Kill everyone in the castle
while we still got time!
Then we can waltz outta
here with all the loot!
Another bandit appears on the map that I forgot the screenshot:
Brigand:
Let's go ransack the villages
and take everything they got!
It's difficult to tell from the screenshot, but he runs to a nearby village and wrecks. This is something we'll have to watch out for in the chapter proper.
(Inside the castle)
Merlinus: We're under attack by
bandits from Mount Bolm!
Eliwood: Blast it! Were I not in this pitiful state,
I would take care of them all myself...!
Eliwood: Lilina, you must hide yourself.
This castle is going to
become a war zone.
Lilina: No, my lord. I can fight, too!
Eliwood: Don't be absurd. I couldn't face Hector if something
happened to you in my own castle.
Lilina: My father? But...
Eliwood: It's going to be all right.
Roy should be here any moment, so we
just need to hold our own until then.
He'll drive off these dastards.
Eliwood: Send a messenger to Roy to let
him know the current situation!
We need his help!
Merlinus: Y-yes, milord!
Roy and his crew appear to the south. A lone knight rides up to meet him.
Roy: Why are you in such a hurry?
Lance: Lord Roy! Bandits have appeared and are attacking
the castle as we speak!
Lance: He's inside, defending against the bandits' attack.
But I don't know how long he can last with his illness...!
Lance: You must be a knight of Ostia. Lady Lilina is in the castle.
She should be all right. She's with Lord Eliwood after all,
but he can't last forever.
Roy: No...
I shouldn't have let Lilina go to
the castle before me.
And with that, we're thrown into the action:
Whew, you never realize how long the intro to this game is until you make it the subject of your very first screenshot LP. Anyway, our crew is in blue, enemies are in red. Let's take a look at our guys:
This is Roy, the main character. It's game over if he dies.
This is Marcus, a paladin. He's seen some shit. Also, notice the horse on his map sprite down there. I'll explain in a bit.
This is Allen, a cavalier, he also has a horse.
This is Bors, an armor knight. We already know his deal.
Wolt, an archer.
And finally Lance, another cavalier.
If you don't know what all those numbers mean, don't worry. I'll go into them in detail in a later post. All you need to know for now is Str=damage, Skl=hit chance, Spd=evasion/attacking twice in a turn, Luck=evasion, Def=reduction in damage from melée and Res=reduction in damage from magic.
Turns in this game are called phases. Right now it's my turn (player phase). I can move my units around an attack enemies. Once I have moved all my units or selecte "end turn," enemy phase begins. All the emenies will move around and attack me if they can.
In order to attack the enemies, most units need to be adjacent to them
So let's do that. Each unit has a number of squares they can move. The b;ue squares show the spaces Allen can move to. The red squares show the squares he can attack.
Next, I select my weapon to attack with.
Then I get a preview box showing both units' current health, how much damage they'll do, their probability of hitting and their probability of a critical hit, in that order. This is the last chance to back out before an attack if the odds aren't to good.
There's also an up arrow next to Allen's sword and a down arrow next to the bandit's axe. This is because of something called the Weapon Triangle. The three melée weapons (not including bows) have a rock-paper-scissors relationship where:
swords > axes >lances > swords
Attacking with the triangle gives +10 hit, +1 mt.. Attacking against the triangle give -10 hit, -1 mt.
This is what attacking looks like. Since Allen initiated the attack, he moves first, then the bandit attacks. Allen hits the bandit for 11 dmg and the bandit misses.
I move Lance up to finish him off.
Once the first enemy goes down, Damas pipes up again:
Damas: But they'll have to go through
me to get into the castle!
He moves onto the castle gate. True to his word, we will have to kill him to finish the chapter. I move Wolt, Marcus, Bors and Roy down towards the bandit to the south, I also move Marcus next to Roy.
Select trade.
This opens the trade interface, allowing me to move items between units. You can see that Roy is carrying a Rapier, a unique sword that only he can use, and a vulnerary, which restores 10hp, but uses up that unit's turn. Marcus is currently carrying an iron sword, and a silver lance. I trade both of them to Roy. Normally, trading uses up the turn of the unit that initiated the trade. Bur mounted units like Marcus can move again after trading, they just can't attack. I move Marcus just north of the bandit in the middle of the screen and end my turn, beginning enemy phase.
Since the bandit initiated the attack this time, he attacks first and Lance attacks second. He misses Lance, who returns the attack. You may also notice the roots around the bandit. See those trees in the background? those are forest tiles. Standing on one gives +20 Avoid, +1 Def, meaning that anyone attacking suffers a -20 hit penaly and does 1 less damage. If that bandit was standing on a plains tile, Lance would have 100 percent chance to hit.
The bandit in the south attacks Roy:
Oh for fuck's sake. On a 38% chance? Are we starting with this bullshit already? Roy returns fire, bringing the bandit down to 11hp.
All the other enemies move closer to my group.
My turn again.
Wolt attacks the bandit that attacked Roy, bringing him down to 3hp. See the gap between Wolt and the bandit? This is because archers like Wolt have the ability to attack from 2 spaces away (1 space diagonally). The kicker? They can only attack from 2 spaces away. If an enemy moves next to them they can't counter. I plan to have Bors finish him off.
Welp, so much for that. The text says MISS if it weren't obvious.
Roy picks up the slack.
I realize looking at the enemy positions that one of them attacked Marcus on their turn and I didn't screenshot it. Next chapter I'm going to write the post as I'm playing so I don;t have to try to piece the chapter together afterwards.
Anyway, this is the reason I had him trade his weapons to Roy earlier; enemies tend to prioritize units that can counterattack. Marcus has far higher stats than the rest of the crew, for reasons I'll go into at the end of the post, so he makes an excellent meatshield at the start of the game.
I have Lance attack the bandit and gets enough experience to gain our first level!
And it's pretty good for him, too! Each character has "growth rates" for each stat. This is the percentage probability that each stat will increase on a level up. This means a character might increase every single skill on level up, or they might get nothing. Lance has a 40% Strength growth and a 20% Defense growth, so getting both in one level is pretty great.
Allen finishes off the bandit that Lance softened up. I position my guys and end my turn.
One of the bandits attacks Lance and gets a lucky hit in. This one is dressed differently from the others. This is the bandit that wrecked the village at the start of the chapter. He's been making his way towards the other village in the south to do the same thing. If that happens we lose whatever the village would give us for visiting. I have anticipated this and had Wolt make a beeline for the village (which I didn't screenshot
)Villager: I know this isn't much...But please accept this money
on behalf of all of us. Use it well! [Got 5000 gold]
Not too shabby.
Without the village to attack, the bandit attacks Allen. He hits and Allen misses
Lance finishes him off. All of the enemies in the south are dead.I take this opportunity to heal and position everyone to bait down the enemies from the north.
They take the bait. Two move down. One attacks Marcus while the other attacks Bors.
Lance dispatches one. Note the x2, which shows that Lance has enough Spd to attack twice in a single attack. In other words he does 20 damage this turn, barely enough to kill the bandit.
Allen softens up the other one and Roy finishes him off.
You can't see it in this screenshot, but Marcus is just far enough north that he's barely inside the range of another bandit.
Once again, he takes the bait. The AI in the GBA Fire Emblem is pretty simplistic. Manipulating them like this is key to basic competence in this game.
Once again, Allen softens him up and Roy finishes him off.
He gets a level too! Pretty underwhelming but that's kind of Roy's thing.
About 80% done with the chapter I finally took a screenshot of the battlefield to show where things stand. Apart from the two bandits at the top there is another bandit and an archer. I use this opportunity to heal up.
Positioning my units to bait more bandits. I won't be this cautious moving forward. It's just that none of the characters are very strong yet and anything can go wrong in these early chapters (remember, permanent character death).
Only one fighter takes the bait. I have Allen finish him off on my turn.
And he gets a pretty good level too! More skill is great for him because his starting skill is so low.
Marcus baits yet another bandit and Lance finishes him off.
Awesome! Strength is important in the early game.
The bandit and the archer reach Lance and both attack Lance. Thanks to my caution this chapter, this is the closest call I've had.
With Lance on low health, I have Allen and Roy finish them off. Only the boss remains.
That steel axe makes him legitimately dangerous at close range. His weakness is that he can only attack from one space away (Rng 1). Bosses that are on castle gates and thrones don't move...
...so Wolt can plink away at him with impunity. That terrible accuracy and low mt. means that this isn't particularly effective, but he can weaken Damas enough for an actually good unit to finish him off.
Gates and thrones have a special property, though. They heal anyone standing on them by 2hp each turn, so that 3 damage that Wolt is doing is actually only 1.
So I decide "Fuck that noise" and have Allen wait next to him. I'm not attacking because if Damas hit him on the counter, he would attack again on his own turn. Allen can only survive one attack from Damas so I wait next to him and counter when Damas attacks.
Gates heal enemies at the start of their turn. Damas' health gets restored to 27hp
He also has an opening quote that I forgot to screenshot (third time's the charm!)
Damas: You bumbling idiots!You can't take down a few pathetic knights?!
He misses. Allen hits him twice, reducing his health to 13hp
Wolt plinks at him again and I end my turn.
That's all she wrote.
Awesome!
Every single map in FE6 is ended by Roy (and only Roy) moving onto the space and selecting Seize from the menu.
Roy: I'm so glad to see you both!
Thank goodness you're unharmed.
Eliwood: Thanks for the rescue, Roy.
Roy: Of course, Father. How is your health?
Eliwood: Well enough. I've some life in me yet. But Roy, do you know why
I called you back here?
Roy: I'm to take over your role by leading the soldiers of Pherae.
We must join the rest of the Lycian Army to defend our people.
Eliwood: Exactly.
As you know, Bern has commenced an invasion of Lycia.
We are honorbound to follow the ancient vows of our allegiance.
Lycia needs every lord's army, and we must oblige.
Roy: Of course.
Eliwood: I'm truly sorry to interrupt your studies and force you into this war,
but I'm not well... I'm in no condition to lead an army.
Roy: Father...
Lilina: My father leads Lycia's largest army.
And I'm certain my magic will be of help to Roy...
Eliwood: No, Lilina.
You must return to Ostia.
Eliwood: With Hector preparing for battle, there is
no one sitting on the throne of Ostia.
It must be an uneasy feeling for the
people not to have a sitting lord.
As the daughter of the marquess, you must
take the throne until Hector returns.
That will put the people at ease.
Do you have any objections?
Lilina: ...No, my lord.
Eliwood: You are to meet them at the border to
Bern. Merlinus will accompany you.
He is knowledgable and experienced and
should be of great help.
Roy: Thank you for everything,
Father.
Eliwood: Don't worry, my son. I have absolute faith in you!
Fight bravely, and show everyone who
the next marquess of Pherae is!
Roy: Yes, Father!
Bors: You needn't ask, milady. I will accompany Lord Roy in his travels
and protect him with my very life.
Lilina: Thank you, Bors. Take care, Roy.
*End of chapter*
Whew. So this is my first time doing something like this; sorry if it's rough around the edges. Each time a new character is introduced I will give their growths and a short description of who they are and what they're good at. So...
Roy
Class: Lord
Weapon ranks: Swords D
Growths: Hp: 80% Str: 40% Skl: 50% Spd: 40% Luck: 60% Def: 25% Res: 30%
Ah, Roy. If you're mainly familiar with him for Super Smash Bros. you may be disappointed. Roy isn't a terrible character, he just isn't really very good at anything. He's basically the Mario of this game. His best stat (Luck) isn't as important for evasion as speed and all his other stats range from mediocre to bad. Depending on how fortune favors us, we might get God Roy or we might get an unusable Roy. There's very rarely any in-between
Allen
Class: Cavalier
Weapon ranks: Swords E Lances D
Growths: Hp: 85% Str: 45% Skl: 40% Spd: 45% Luck: 40% Def: 25% Res: 10%
Fire Emblem reuses character types a lot. Every FE has a pair of Cavaliers. One in red armor, one in green. Cavaliers are mounted units (obviously) that in addition to great mobility have decently high hp and are good with multiple weapon types. The red knight usually focuses on Strength and Defense while the green knight focuses on Skill and Speed. Allen mostly fits but trades Defense for an unusually high Skill stat for a red knight.
Lance
Class: Cavalier
Weapon ranks: Swords D Lances E
Growths: Hp: 80% Str 40% Skl: 45% Spd: 50% Luck: 35% Def: 20% Res: 15%
As a green knight, Lance has the requisite higher Skl/Spd that Allen. He also synergizes well with Allen because of a mechanic I'll explain later. Apart from that there's nothing I can say about him that I didn't already say about Allen.
Wolt
Class: Archer
Weapon ranks: Bows D
Growths: Hp: 80% Str: 40% Skl: 50% Spd: 40% Luck: 40% Def: 20% Res: 10%
As we saw, archers can only attack 2 spaces away (one diagonally). They are also extra effective against a unit type we'll see next chapter. Unfortunately, they are not very useful against much else. Their low strength combined with the low power and accuracy of bows means they'll constantly do little damage and miss all the time. I'm not really a fan of archers in any FE, especially this one.
Bors
Class: Knight
Weapon ranks: Lances C
Growths: Hp: 90% Str: 30% Skl: 30% Spd: 40% Luck: 50% Def: 35% Res: 10%
Bors is a knight. Confusingly, the game uses the word "knight" to mean both Bors' class and the more traditional sense (like Allen and Lance are described as knights for example). To avoid confusion, I'll be referring to Bors' class by its Japanes name - Armor Knight. Armor knights are usually walls of defense and hp and maybe high strength. Bors trades all of that for a really high luck stat for some reason. On top of this, FE6 is a game that really shits on Armor knights. I wouldn't use any armor knights in this game and if I did I wouldn't pick Bors.
Marcus
Class: Paladin
Weapon ranks: Swords D Lances A Axes E
Growths: Hp: 60% Str: 25% Skl: 20% Spd: 25% Luck: 20% Def: 15% Res: 20%
One of these things is not like the others... Yeah if you look at Marcus' growths and compare them with any other character, you'll notice they are roughly halved. Earlier I said that FE like to reuse characters. Well, Marcus is what's called a Jeigan Character (named after his archetpye in the very first game).
When a unit gets to level 10 (out of 20) they have the option to change class to a more powerful one. This is informally called promotion. Marcus is what's called a prepromote. This means he has already promoted (a paladin is what cavaliers like Lance/Allen promote into). Prepromotes generally have lower growths than unpromoted units, so raising Lance/Allen up to a level 1 paladin like marcus has a high probability of a unit with higher stats.
Jeigan characters are prepromotes that the player starts with. Just about every FE has one. An unwary player will see Marcus' high stats and think, "aw yeah," and use him to solo the opening maps. Prepromotes get much less experience per kill than unpromoted units owing to their higher level, so using Marcus exlusively will rob other units of much needed experience down the line. In other words, a beginners' trap.
So yeah, don't use Marcus, and if you do, use him as a meatshield like I did.
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. I described fighters as having high hp and strength and Ward fits the bill perfectly. His strength starts decently high and he has a good growth there. His skill growth is kind of high for an axe user, so it should come through despite the terrible base. He's slow as molasses though, and that's his downfall.
Deke kills the other one.
granted it's only a generic soldier but still...