1555 – Conflict at Itsukushima
For once, the narrator does not feel the compulsion to give a lengthy recap of the entire warring states era, for which I am thankful. Instead, he speaks of the Mori clan and how its leader, Motonari, decided to rebel against the Amago and Ouchi clans, for whom the Mori were retainers. He takes a force to Itsukushima, and Harukata Sue of the Ouchi follows him there with a much larger force. There’s also mention of the Marukami Navy lying in wait; I’m sure that won’t be important at all.
We then cut to Motonari expositing to one of his soldiers (or his son? I’m not sure if “Father” here is literal or figurative) about his plan, which boils down to “The enemy has a larger force? Make them fight where they’ll be weaker!” For a tactical genius, Motonari’s tactics are not particularly revolutionary. He also thinks that assaulting them during a storm will catch them off guard, because that can’t possibly backfire at all.
Xavi, being the wandering intruder he is, joins the Mori army in the middle of this debacle to learn from Motonari’s tactical prowess. Take note that this is 10 years after Kawagoe, and Xavi has not aged in the slightest. Much like Hirohiko Araki, he must age backwards. Or he actually is Araki. Fascinating.
What was I talking about again? Oh right, Xavi is inspired by Motonari’s kindness and stuff. This will probably be a pattern. Motonari explains that the main plan is to capture the Itsukushima shrine, then hold out until the Marukami Navy arrives, at which point they can launch a joint attack. Welp, no point in wasting even more time. Let’s get this started!
Rather, I would do so, but I am rudely interrupted by a tutorial for super attacks that I really don’t need. I skip through it and am greeted by a mission: to capture Itsukushima shrine. Well, I suppose we’re getting straight to the point. I start to do so, only to be interrupted by an ambush and a second mission to defeat all spy captains within 3 minutes. Goddammit, so I will have to deal with multiple at a time.
Despite my complaints, I decide to start by capturing all the strongholds. Thankfully, most of the spy captains just appear at one of the strongholds I’m supposed to capture. However, after capturing them all and completing that mission, I still need to execute one more spy for his insolence. Oh, but no time for that, I have much more important matters to attend to, such as tutorials on strongholds, which have already been explained before!
In the middle of hunting down the last spy captain, I get another mission to hold down Miyao Castle until the Murakami Navy arrives. So, wait, I get Itsukushima shrine in one mission, then defend Miyao Castle in the very next? Either this is a very short chapter, or I misunderstood what the whole point of it was.
I defeat the last spy captain as Xavi, then switch over to Motonari since he’s closer to Miyao Castle, and Jesus Christ he does no damage. He does about as much damage to faceless captains as Xavi was doing to Shingen last chapter. I defeat two of them with relative ease, but end up failing the mission by hitting the last enemy captain into Miyao Castle. Oops.
Regardless of my stupidity, the Murakami Navy arrives! With that, the Mori’s land forces start advancing, and a new mission appears to capture the Sue army’s central garrison. Immediately after, another mission appears to defeat 30 enemy soldiers, in the process preventing any allied captains from being defeated. By the way, the bonus for both of these is to clear them in a minute. I can only do so much, game.
And then another mission, this one to execute a 50-hit combo. Game, this is just getting arbitrary at this point. So no, I’m going to ignore that last one. It tries to get me to use the battle skills of one of the allied captains, to double the combo count. However, he doesn’t have enough meter for me to use it. Oops.
My plan to ignore that last mission works wonders, since I end up completing the former two with ease, albeit the latter without the bonus. Harukata ends up concerned since I’m killing his dudes so hard, and more enemy captains appear from... the aether, I guess? They just kind of inexplicably appear. Regardless, I have to defeat them all for the next mission.
And for the mission I’m given immediately after, I have to defeat a completely different captain with a super attack. Well, there go my chances of completing the former mission within a minute. I use Xavi to super finish that captain, then use Motonari to kill all the others since the AI captains are really stupid and useless. Inexplicably, I manage to get a 50-hit combo in that time, though at this point it’s obviously too late to get the bonus of getting it in one minute.
With all of the captains defeated, Harukata and another captain whom nobody cares about start to retreat, and the final mission is to defeat them both. This one is just a bit more important than the others, since if Harukata successfully retreats, I fail the mission. I use Motonari to kill the nameless guy, then switch to Xavi to defeat Harukata since XAVI IS ALL-POWERFUL AND MUST ACCOMPLISH EVERYTHING BY HIMSELF.
The plan of the great and mighty Xavi goes off without a hitch, and he defeats Harukata to end the mission. Following the mission, I get the standard weapons and EXP, as well as a piece of equipment called the Hannya Mask. That’s cool, I guess, since I don’t have any other equipment yet.
With the battle over, the narration explains that Motonari is now the dictator ruler of Chugoku, since Harukata’s successor ends up dead two years later; the game uses the vague terms that he was eliminated. Motonari confirmed for feudal Japanese Stalin.
Motonari then speaks of many minds unifying as one heart, toward one goal. Totally a dirty Commie. Alternatively to being Stalin, Motonari is Lenin, and this battle was a precursor to the conflict between the whites and the reds! For being isolationist, feudal Japan sure did know a lot about the futures of other countries.
He further explains that, for the prosperity of the land, all involved must have a clear vision of the future. This prompts another dialogue choice about whether Xavi has a vision yet. I doubt Motonari would like it if I just told him, “Lolnah, I just joined you to beat people up.”
My intuition proves correct, for an indicator shows that it increased his friendship. Either this means I chose the wrong option last chapter with Ujiyasu, or the other option actually decreased his affection. I don’t think I would want to risk dealing with Ujiyasu’s bad side, so I’m okay with that.
Xavi, being the dirty ninja always playing dirty that he is, leaves Chugoku behind, thinking on Motonari’s words of... wisdom? Communism? Could be either, really.
I originally had the plan to only do one chapter per installment, but it seems that won’t work in this case, since this was a rather short chapter. With that said, onward to:
1557 – 3rd Battle of Kawanakajima
Following Ujiyasu kicking everyone’s asses, a grand conflict breaks out over the Kanto region. The Hojo, Takeda, and Uesugi are the main factors in this battle, and the former two end up joining forces with the Imagawa and expanding their territories. Those who were injusticed by this expansion turn to Kenshin, then-head of the Uesugi, for help, and he takes the Uesugi to confront to the Takeda, marking the third conflict between the clans.
Long story short, Kenshin is Batman, and Shingen is one of his many rogues’ gallery. Probably the Penguin, since they’re both really fat.
The following cutscene begins with Aya worshipping Shingen’s tactical prowess and wondering how Kenshin feels about facing a general of such power. I guess it’s a good thing Ujiyasu beat her up and not me, since she’s apparently going to be on my side this time! Also, Kenshin should already know how to feel, considering they’ve fought so much.
Kenshin gives a vague, faux-philosophical answer before declaring that he’ll suffer no wounds. He then continues to espouse his stupid philosophies that aren’t actually of any significance before finally finishing with the statement he could’ve both started and ended with: “Warriors must know perfect certainty.” Gee, I wonder if Xavi will end up learning something from this battle before abandoning another army!
While briefing the soldiers, which include Xavi who just kind of appears, Kenshin refers to himself as the God of War. Not vain in the slightest. And then Aya is the one to actually give the mission briefing, making Kenshin the god of both war and laziness. Even then, the mission boils down to “Divide and conquer.” Koei should not write characters as tactical geniuses if they themselves are not tactical geniuses.
At the equipment screen, I find myself unable to equip the Hannya mask, since it can only go into the second slot for some arbitrary reason, and Xavi’s equipment only has one slot. I could equip it to Kenshin or Aya, but screw them. Since I can’t really do much else at this point, let’s start the battle!
In quick succession, I get two missions: get Kenshin to a camp to secure it as the Uesugi’s central camp, and defeat a captain guarding a gate in Kenshin’s way. The difficulty of these missions is greatly reduced considering that I can control Kenshin, so the captain dies in short order. I then leave the AI to get Kenshin there, since two more missions appear.
One is to lure the captain Masatoyo Naito to a camp for an ambush, and the other is to defeat Sakon Shima. Aya is closest to both of them, and the bonus for the latter is to defeat him with Aya, so the answers are obvious. Naito, being the idiot he is, is lured to the camp, and I subsequently kill him with zero effort.
Sakon, being a character with a unique design, is much more difficult. He also knows how to actually guard, making him perhaps my most difficult opponent thus far. This only worries me further for the inevitable showdown with Shingen. Also of note is that Sakon essentially hits on Aya. He must be a very lonely man.
Aya cares not for his stupidity, since following their confrontation, she declares it better to have worthy enemies than friends. She’s about to make a lot of them, since the next mission is to defeat a bunch of enemies and prevent her defeat. If she’s defeated, I’ll kind of lose either way, since I’m controlling her. With that in mind, let’s get to work!
Aaaaand they all start ganging up on me. Either the AI rapidly got smarter between levels, or I forgot how to play between levels. Either way, I end up defeating them, only for that mission to be immediately followed up by one to defeat all officers other than Shingen in 3 minutes. Given that they’re spread all about the map, I don’t think this will work out.
Indeed it doesn’t, though not for the reasons that I thought. I get to work as Kenshin, only for me to accidentally run into Shingen. Rather, he ran into me with his charging attack. This wastes enough time that I’m unable to defeat all officers. Or maybe I just forgot to switch characters, considering most of the others were on the other side of the map. Either way, I failed. And that’s terrible.
With that, I am finally given the incentive to defeat Shingen. Not the mission; I don’t get a reward for it, which makes me very sad. Regardless, Xavi is very special, and I haven’t done enough with him this level anyway, so I head all the way across the map to confront Shingen with him. While traveling there, Kenshin beats Xavi there and gets smacked around for a bit before I arrive to save his ass. He suddenly gets more competent when not being whaled on, and the two of us defeat Shingen easily.
Before moving on to the battle results, I’d just like to mention how to capture strongholds. Largely because a lot of strongholds continually changed hands in the fight, and I still don’t know how to capture them. I assume it’s just to defeat all the enemy officers in it, but I have no real way to be sure. Maybe sifting through that tutorial last chapter was not the greatest idea.
Regardless of my indecision and stupidity, I get two more pieces of equipment. Still both of them are arbitrarily designated as slot 2 equips, so I still don’t have anything Xavi can properly equip. Argle bargle. Oh, and I finally get a power-type weapon for Xavi. Not sure of the difference, but I found it worthy of note.
The first thing the narration reveals post-battle? Kenshin and Shingen’s rivalry did not end there. Well, that doesn’t give me a sense of finality or climax. With the other fights, things actually happened as a result. Why not just let us play their final battle instead? What makes the 3rd battle so special? Well, apparently, it’s because their rivalry is ignited then, but why not in the previous times they’ve fought? This still all feels rather arbitrary to me.
Kenshin promptly abandons his soldiers because SCREW CAMARADERIE, HE HAS A NEMESIS. Well, he has camaraderie with Xavi, of course, for Xavism has shown him the light! He’s even kind enough to tell us how to refine our spirit to be the best Xavist we can be. What a nice man. With that, he promptly leaves, not even giving Xavi enough time for a dialogue option. Insulted by the lack of a dialogue option this chapter, Xavi promptly makes his way for the next battlefield.
I would bid farewell, but forget that, a shop opened! Shoppin’ time! I mess around with equipment for a bit now that Xavi actually has 2 equipment slots, upgrade some weapons, and buy him a GODDAMN HORSE AWWWW YEAAAAH. Rather, I would, but all the horses either have bad stats, or are ugly. I am incredibly petty, so either of these could be a deal breaker.
Okay, now I’m done. Farewell, all. Join me next time in 1560, for the Battle of Okehazama! Will Xavi age in that time? Who knows, but probably not!
