FE4 Chapter 6: A New Hope

[mark_asphodel]

Moving right along...

Well, we have Level 1 and Level 2 characters sporting silver weapons and long-range healing staves.  We have the crazy sword twins with their sib bonus crits and their dodging.  We have Celice, who is pretty impressive for a baby Lord.  We have Rana and Lester, who creep me out because they're such exact replacements for their parents.  Same sprites, same gear.  And then there's Delmud, who so far is alarmingly fragile for a guy on a horse with a big iron blade.  (Yes, Lachy's son needs Pursuit, or the magic ring equivalent thereof.  This is already abundantly clear.)  Oh, and Oifey, who is the #1 target of enemy dogpiles, apparently because the enemies want to deny the kids sweet Exp.  

 

Conquering Ganeshire was pretty much kid stuff.  Celice was knocked down to 05 HP by the time he seized it, but hey, that's still upright.  Johan's crew proved a slightly larger problem (I mentioned Delmud?  Yeah, thanks for the restart, bucko.)  And then Arthur and Fee showed up on the other end of the map.  Fee has all Fury's awesome stuff, most of which used to be Finn's awesome stuff, so she's already in her own league as a baby peg knight.  Arthur OTOH has a Wind tome and a slightly creepy backstory.  Grew up on his own in the Silesian hinterlands?  He's not a feral child, and he's not presented as an illiterate prodigy, so he's making me think of a Unabomber type, concocting his homebrew Wind spells in some remote cabin and plotting... stuff.  This is Skullcrusher we're talking about here.

 

I never liked Arthur much.  And I loathe him as a boyfriend for Fee; any relationship that kicks off with "Yeah, I thought you were dumb" fails to charm me.  Most of the Gen 2 'romances' just have that kind of schoolyard squabble quality to them[*], and given that many of the characters are apparently 17-18 instead of 13-14... nope.  I mean, Celice is almost nineteen at the start of Gen 2, even if he's protesting to Swordtwins about not being a kid anymore.  Swordtwins are, almost certainly, younger than Celice.  Noish!twins are definitely younger than Celice, at least in my playthrough, 'cause the marriage didn't kick in until Silesia...

 

Ahem.  I mentioned creepy backstories.  Julia's joined the party; honestly after my revulsion toward Dierdre, another round of "mysterious waif with amnesia" is already tiresome.  At least Julia ought to have 6-7 years of memories of hanging out with Levin, for whatever that's worth.  Fee, OTOH, has a pretty decent story; Fury raised her on tales of Sigurd's army, so Fee deliberately signs on-board with Celice.  There's a dash of romanticism there that's beyond "the bad guyz hosed my country" usual sort of Reasons.

 

Anyway, Chapter 6 had a couple of sticky spots, but overall was pretty non-threatening.  The NPCs in Johalva's army (after his recruitment) bugged me as much as the enemies; I was worried they'd steal my Exp or my gold.  And Dannan allowed for the most piss-easy and egregious boss abuse I've ever done; Fee and Arthur "gently caressed" him with javelins and wind magic while waiting for the main bulk of the army to catch up.  They got several level-ups apiece that way.  Seriously, Arthur cleared the mountain pass, moved in on Rivough once Dannan sent his army out of harass Celice, and just hung around flinging magic over the walls.  Risk-free.  

 

I wonder what, specifically, Levin was doing in Lenster.  FE5 has him drop in on his henchman August, but IIRC he brought Julia along on that trip.  Remember, Leaf starts raising hell a full year before Celice starts his rebellion, at least in the retconned timeline.  I'm guessing originally Levin goes to visit Lenster with the express purpose of kicking off said hell-raising?  How nice of him.

 

* Leaf at least promises to take his beloved shopping and buy her jewelry.  Go, Leaf!

Comments

[amielleon]

I think I mentioned to you that I like giving Delmud the Defense Sword? He does well with it, since (especially at first) his dodging isn't as reliable as the swordtwins for instance. The defense boost makes a huge difference, and said sword is also light, accurate, and hits fairly hard. I feel like it's wasted on most other characters, who might prefer equipping something else.

[mark_asphodel]

Dew didn't have the cash for the Def Sword after helping Sigurd out with Tyrfing repairs and getting Celice the Leg Ring. Leen should have it on her at present. I can sure confiscate it, though, 'cause Del's dodging is indeed pretty bad.

[samuraiter]

Leaf: "And by shopping, I mean robbing. Just so you know."

[mark_asphodel]

Heh. Cheap thrills and bling in one go, baby.

There's a very funny Japanese playthrough of FE4 that I accessed through Google Translate. The writer interpolated a scene in Chapter 7 (where Leaf shows up) where Leaf freaks out that he doesn't have enough money to buy an Elite Ring for easy Exp and demands that Nanna start stealing him some money using Lachy's heirloom Thief Sword. When Finn objects, Leaf says something like, "It's OK, didn't we grow up this way?"

And FE13's treatment of Leaf suggests that everyone is in on the joke now, including the game-makers. ;)