Class Mayhem! Let's Hack Fire Emblem + Sword of Seals!

Chapter 59 is pretty damn simple. I need to get from one corner of the map to the other, and I need to wade through countless enemies to do so. I have 30 turns to finish this chapter before the window of time for the side quest ends, so it‘s time to get moving.

Honestly, this chapter is a pain in the ass because there are so many enemies. Even with turbo, enemy phases can take a long while, and unfortunately these guys ignore the classic quality > quantity rule. Each enemy has some impressive stats (damn near every Wyvern unit has capped Strength, for example), and their equipment makes them even more of a threat. It’s very easy for my units to die in this map, so there are going to be a lot of resets.

The most notable incidence was Lalum dying at the very end of an enemy phase to a 24% hit chance.



On the plus side, because Murdock is an awesome guy, there is only one magic unit here with an offensive long range attack. Sure, there’s a lot of Bishops with Physic, but I can deal with that.



Anyways, strategy. BARTRE THE BRAVE has awaken from his long slumber, and he’s ready to kill things. As such, he (and Cath for the Support bonus) is going down the right path.



Meanwhile, everyone else heads due south to confront the main enemy force.





So special note about the Divine Weapons. Unlike in FE7, here they’re all worth 0 gold. So you can use them all you like, though you better not break them.



I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’d be wading though enemies. These guys are actually trying to back attack me here, with “trying” being the key word.

INITIATE WALL OF LEVEL UPS.



I can not even remember which parts of the Cecilia-Lilina Support I’ve already posted.

It’s the beginning of Turn 10, and my army has successfully crushed their opponents. Now the only thing left to do is march to Murdock.



Oh wait, Gale’s here too. This is kind of unfortunate; along with the other two naturally spawning group of Wyvern units, my forces are going to get pinned in.



And by my forces, I mean Bartre and Cath. I think you can already see how this is going to go for Bern.

And with that, Gale is neutralized.



It took 5 turns, but I’ve crushed Bern’s trump card. It’s time for Roy and Murdock to duel in single combat.



And by single combat, I‘m not counting Roy‘s cheerleaders, who are totally not unnerving Murdock with fear of a painful death if Roy loses.



Not that Roy was going to lose.




This is another Fog of War chapter, so I’ll just use Serenes Forest’s map again.

Anyways, I’ve finally reached the last Divine Weapon chapter! And wouldn’t you know it, there’s an annoying gimmick! Besides the Fog of War, there are traps all over the place that you need a Thief to find. Since bringing Fir would be the epitome of frustration, I guess I’ll just have to slowly slog through this dungeon filled with super powered enemies!



NO



I AM NOT GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS WASTE OF TIME

(I actually had a SS rank before Chapter 59, but by now I’m certain that I’ve lost it.)



There were some level ups. Roy and Alan got one too, but Roy is about to promote and Alan got jack squat from it so I didn’t take a picture.

YES.



Haha what. Okay, let me go fix that.



That’s better.


…Okay, I know I said I was going to do Chapter 60, but my will to play this game is already incredibly low thanks to the last few chapters. So instead of Chapter 60, let’s just vote on what characters I’ll use!

(Note that these votes are only going to count for Chapters 61-Final; Chapter 60 lets me bring 16 units in, and that just happens to be the exact amount of good units I have.)

First, let’s discuss the characters I have to bring.



Roy is an unstoppable murder machine.



So is Lilina.



And Thany.



And Sue.



Lalum, however, is not. Oh well, Dance is always nice to have. (I’m kind of tempted to turn her into a Divine Dragon now that there’s only three chapters left.)



Cecilia is only good because I’ve hacked her Skill and Speed to acceptable levels, so she’s definitely no murder machine. With a Wo Dao, though? That’s a different story.



Back to the murder machines! Sophia is basically impervious to magic.



Finally, there’s Fa. It’s actually kind of convenient that I got two Miurges considering I have two archers. A shame I didn’t get two Maltes.

Anyways, here’s the units you guys can vote for. Note that only two units can make it in to the final chapter with everyone else.



I would have put Guinevere in the “must bring” list, but I figured that since she doesn’t have a Support with Roy it won’t count.



Bartre has been sitting out this entire game and he’s still superior to the murder harem.



Cath’s great, but her low Strength cap is kind of dragging her down. Good thing the Durandal boosts Strength by 5!



Gonzales has also pretty much been benched this entire game (low movement will do that to you), but he’s still great. Note that with the Durandal, either Cath will get it, or Gonzales. One or the other.

Alan won’t be getting a Divine Weapon, but I think he can live without one.



Lance is getting a Divine Weapon, but what he really needs is higher Strength.



I put these two here pretty much for the heck of it. I honestly don’t intend to use them, but if you want I will.

Cath and Bartre. Lalum can reveal her true form if you wish.

I'll go with this. Never mind; I instead choose Bartre and Gonzales.

I'll have to go with the Cath and Bartre combo too. Like you've said all along, Cath seems like she should have had a connection with Roy... and how can we not take the mighty Bartre along, the returning champion?

Cath & Guinivere

This this this.

This and dragon time for Lalum!

Ugh, I hate Cath.

Gonzales & Cecilia w/ Wo Dao, I guess.

This is the last update with Supports, so I tried to cram in as much as I could from the characters that came late.



Chapter 60 is the final chapter of a no-sidequest game, and it’s surprisingly easy. Sure, almost every enemy is promoted and has some crazy weapons, there’s a Druid with a Berserk in the center of the map, and to open the door to Zephiel two units have to press switches at the top of the map, but compared to some of the bullshit the game throws at you in the sidequest chapters, this is a piece of cake.



Like I said, the goal of this chapter is to get to these two switches.



As you can see, for the east switch I just need to head up, but for the west switch my units have to take a U-turn. The reason the east side has it so easy is



because Roy needs to get to the center of the map to open the door to the throne room.



The last thing I can say about this chapter is that the Druid with the Berserk is easy to deal with. Miledy and her low Resistance is a massive target for said Druid, so if I place her on a side with Restore staves I can pretty much nullify the Berserk.

And just for the hell of it, here’s the fourth wall breaking Yodel-Dayan A Support.



Turn 7 and Bartre’s gotten to his switch. Now everyone’s waiting on Alan and Lance.







Turn 11 and Lance still hasn’t made it. These two Bishops spawned, and they both have status staves. I still have all of those Restores, though, so I don’t care.



Lance finally makes it over on Turn 13.



Once the door to Zephiel’s throne opens, these guys pop up at both of my team’s starting places.



They’re not going to be doing a thing, though, because Roy’s already launched his attack.



Whenever Lalum sneezes, everything in front of her is destroyed.



Speaking of Lalum, I ended up moving her out of Roy’s Support radius. Oh well, Zephiel’s screwed anyways.

This is another simple map. Charge through the Wyvern units and beat the crap out of Brenya. You’ll have to just accept the enemy Druids with the status staves though.



Like Fir, Bartre has special dialog with Karel.







Assuming the Guy-Karel Support is canon, and considering that Guy’s title at the end of FE7 was also Sword Saint, it’s highly likely that Guy and Karel dueled to the death, with Karel as the victor. Perhaps that battle was enough to sate Karel’s bloodlust.



Brenya has a Bolting tome, so she’s actually really easy to kill.

This chapter has a gigantic map and not much to do but listen to Yahn exposit.



It also has way too many bottlenecks,



And crazy strong enemies.

Yahn is pretty powerful.



But Lilina is even more powerful.



It took twenty seven turns, but I’m finally done with this chapter.

So I sped ahead to see what rank I would get for beating the game, and instead of getting SS I got A because of a new criteria I had no idea about called Weapon.

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Power (average level of your army), in which case I pretty much shot myself in the foot by focusing only on team harem.

This isn't important or anything, but:

Totally awesome.

This, good sir, is why ranked runs are total rubbish. Focusing on a handful of units is the better tactical decision in these type of games, after all.

Thing is, Power was only in FE6. And, to be honest, it's even more bullshit than the other ranks; you need 1001 or more level ups to get an A.

Hmm, at 39 levels maximum... 25 and two-thirds. So you need to spread experience over more than two dozen units.

Whoops, never mind. I was just reading it wrong. Power doesn't need 1001 level ups, it needs 1001 total levels. Promoted units get +20 to their current level, so I have... 948.

...That seems like it should be a lot higher than a C, but this game disagrees. I wonder if I can do anything to change that...

Exp and Power isn't so bad if you spread the experience gains among all your units. The real awkward thing to master in ranked play is Funds.

http://serenesforest.net/fe6/rank2.html

Funds isn't that hard. Just never use anything that isn't an Iron weapon (I broke this near the end by dipping into my Wyrmslayer and Wo Dao stash but it turned out alright) and buy a ton of stuff.

FE6 actually has it easier; there, the Funds formula divides the total value of everything you have by two. This means you can freely sell your gems.

Sure, but as soon as you buy anything with that money you lose cash. Overall, I suppose it is a net positive to sell any gems, items or weapons you don't plan to use for that purpose.

There's nothing to be gained from having a good ranking except pride (unless you're doing a challenge run), so it's not really something I care too much about. Still, it's a nice ego boost to find that you're doing suprisingly well.

I live! The back in school rush is mostly over for me, so by next week I’ll hopefully return to my usual update schedule.

Like in FE7, all of the characters have something to say once the final chapter begins.



That is a very good idea, and the way to get the true ending. However…



With the Sealed Sword Roy can take Idoun down in one battle without Supports. This is mainly because the Sealed Sword is the most ridiculous weapon in the entire GBA trilogy, but there’s another factor at work.



As far as I know, Idoun is the weakest final boss in the entire Fire Emblem series. Sure, her stats look sizable, but she only has 80 HP, and at this point you are guaranteed to have both the Sealed Sword and Fa, who can both completely destroy Idoun.



Not only that, Idoun’s weapon is the hilariously pathetic Dark Breath. As you can see from the comparison image, it’s a slightly enhanced Flame Stone. It even shares the 1 panel range, so the only time Idoun’s ever going to attack is by countering.



Dark Breath also lacks stat boosts, which could have made Idoun just as much of a threat as FE7’s Dragon.



Level 20 Mamkutes constantly spawn here, so getting experience isn’t that hard. As a side note, these are the last three level ups of the game.

ANYWAYS



Because I am completely insane I’m going to ignore the easy win buttons that are Roy and Lalum in favor of the rest of Roy’s harem. This actually makes Idoun slightly difficult, as her Defense is so high the x3 damage multiplier of the Divine Weapons won’t completely destroy her. My characters’ stats, however…

I’ll be showing off the girls’ stats and combat windows.



Despite its lackluster stats, Idoun’s weapon has a whopping three animations. The first is this tail smack.





The second attack is a clawed grasp.





The final attack is the actual Dark Breath.



Welp, that’s that. Might as well reset and give the ranged attackers a chance.



Thany somehow got a critical hit on her second attack.





Guinevere isn’t going to get a chance to attack so I might as well show her stats. Due to her ridiculous base stats, she actually ended up statistically better than Lilina. But Lilina has Supports so yeah.

I’d like to note that against Idoun, the game pauses for a bit after damage has been dealt. It looks pretty weird.





Once again, easy win.



Just as a demonstration for why Lalum is a win button…



Fa’s even better at this, since she doesn’t have crap for a Strength growth.



Anyways, time for the main event!




(If you finish the game at Chapter 60, you’ll just get Epilogue. If you finish the game at the Final Chapter but don’t kill Idoun with the Sealed Sword, you’ll get Epilogue X.)



The main difference between the epilogues is the fate of Idoun. In Epilogue, she just vanishes, presumably forever awaiting Zephiel. In Epilogue X, she is killed. And in Epilogue XX, she is spared and eventually regains her soul.