Last time, we found out our heroes, Orcus, his friend Vice, and his sister Kachua are part of a resistance group to save the opressed Walstanians and fight against the forces of the Gargastan and the Bacrumese! We prepare an ambush on the Black Knights, a powerful group of soldiers sent by the nation of Lodis to support the Bacrumese led by a man named Lans Tartare (see where my avatar is from now?). However, it turned out we were mistaken and the group we were attacking were simple mercenaries banished from the faraway land of Zenobia, whose leader is named Lans Hamilton. We take advantage of Vice's screw-up and hire them to help us save the leader of the resistance, Duke Ronway, from the Gargastan castle Amorika.
Here's the world map again.
◊ We can't really do anything other than go to the highlighted red place, so that is what we do.
A synthesized voice says "Fight It Out," a Catchphrase for the entire series, and the battle begins. We are not taken to the unit deployment screen, as all of our party members are guests.
We are confronted by a force of four soldiers (the males), two amazons (the females), and a berzerker (the bearded man), Bapalu, who is the boss.
◊ He says we have fallen into his trap and attacks.
Victory Condition: Kill the Leader
This means you only need to kill Bapalu; killing the other enemies is optional.
Some awesome music starts playing. This game has a great soundtrack.
Guildus
◊ explains jumping.
◊ To jump, the other side has to be the same height or lower.
Canopus
◊ talks about
◊ winged men.
◊ He goes on to tell Orcus to use teamwork. A very good lesson to learn in this game. Mildain tells us that if we want to move quicker and get turns in before other enemies, we shouldn't wear heavy armor and unneccessary items. Lans Hamilton tells us to check the guardian element of the enemy we are about to face. For example, we will do more damage if I fight a water-based enemy, as my guardian element is fire. However, the damage they do to me will be greater. Warren
◊ explains MP increases as WT counts down; you accumulate WT every round.
An amazon comes foward and tries to shoot Guildus with a bow.
◊ He blocks the arrow.
◊
The cursor comes towards us. It is our turn! Here are our core stats. It does not show the effects of armor or weapons.
◊ I move Orcus to the space highlighted by the cursor.
◊
Some core things about battles the game doesn't tell you; when a character, on either side, loses all their HP, they are dead. No crystals, no reviving; if a character dies, they are lost forever.
When attacking an enemy, they will counterattack, whether you attack them from the sides, the front, or the back. On the other hand, if an enemy attacks you, you will counterattack too, no matter where they attack you. You can decrease the accuracy of a counterattack by attacking an enemy from the back. This will increase your accuracy, and decrease their counterattack accuracy. You will not be counterattacked if you use bows or spells; more on that when we discuss classes.
When an enemy dies, whether on your side or the enemies side, they will sometimes drop either treasure or a card. Treasure contains items, usually something that the murdered soldier had. You step on their corpse to get the treasure. Cards increase your stats. Just like treasure, you must step on them. Enemies may steal treasure from you by stepping on the corpses. Same with cards. At the end of the battle, any treasure that has not been picked up by you or the enemy will be rewarded to you. Cards, however, will not. Thus, you should make collecting cards a higher priority than getting treasure.
All of our party members; Kachua, Vice, Canopus, Lans, Mildain, Guildus, and Warren; are guests. This mean they attack and move by themselves; we have no control.
In case you haven't guessed, the ultra-powerful Zenobians will be doing most of the killing here; we would be lucky to get a hit in.
I face forward.
◊ I'm about to do something sneaky.
I click the "action" button, and then click "indirect." No matter what class you are, you can throw stones.
◊ It's very weak, and should never be used. Here's the range of the rock.
◊ As you can see, Lans is in my range. His back is to me. I throw the rock and... hit him! He loses 1 HP.
◊ You may be wondering, why did I do that? In this game, you get EXP whenever you attack someone. You get more EXP for attacking higher level enemies. Lans is level 3. I got 16 EXP for attacking Lans,
◊ and you need 100 EXP to level up. Sorry, Lans, but levels are really, really improtant in this game.
Vice and Kachua move forward. Guildus moves forward and attacks the amazon who had shot at him earlier, dealing 58 HP and one-hit killing her!
◊ Holy crap! Because Guildus is level 3, he gets a measly 2 EXP for killing here. Also, as you can see, she has turned into treasure.
◊ You get more EXP for landing killing blows on enemies. Canopus attacks a soldier, not quite one hit killing him. Canopus has a lance; unlike most hand-held weapons, which have a range of one, a lance has a range of two. I'll go over the more complicated parts of the lance later, but needless to say, it's a pretty good weapon. Mildain moves foward and kills the enemy Canopus attacked.
◊ He becomes treasure. Lans attacks this guy... and gains a critical, one hit killing him!
◊ When you get a critical, you do more damage, and the enemy is kocnked back a square. The enemy becomes treasure. Warren attacks a far away enemy with a spell called Incubus.
◊ It does good damage, and has chance of putting an enemy to sleep, as it does with the soldier he attacked here.Bapalu moves forward and attacks Lans... and is blocked!
◊ Lans counterattacks, doing a great deal of damage to Bapalu!
◊ Another enemy attacks Lans, does a measly 3 damage, and is counterattacked for all his health!
◊ He also becomes treasure. Canopus is attacked by an amazon, and blocks. As you can see, it has started raining. It is my turn. I move to the highlighted space
◊ and attack Warren with a rock. I get 16 EXP. Guildus kills the boss.
◊
Bapalu: I-I can't believe I lost... Yes, this game has death quotes for bosses. He becomes treasure. The rest of the living enemies die.
Congratulations!
◊ I get some Goth, the currency of this game,
◊ I get 300 extra goth, a short sword, a bow, and a Cure+++.
The battle done, we enter into the castle.
Next time: we try to save our leader, Duke Ronway, recieve some troops, and explain overworld commands!
Not all battles will be explained in this much detail. I just did it here so you guys would get the gist of what battle is like. Stay tuned... the game is a lot better, a lot darker, and a lot more compelling then it looks at first! It was written by the same writer of FFT, after all...
