Thracia 776 Map Design Review: Chapters 1 - 5

Chapter 1

       

     And here we have an example of a well designed first chapter. It avoids the pitfall that some first chapters run into: treating the player like an idiot. These types of first chapters usually have 3 enemies or less and are pretty small. Thracia’s Chapter 1 avoids all of these. Instead it has roughly eleven soldiers and a few archers. It also has houses that can give the player neat stuff (like the Pugi and Brave Axes), although the game doesn’t really tell the player who needs to visit said houses.

                       Having enemy mooks use lances is also an interesting departure given how most first chapters tend to give enemy mooks axes so that the lord can gain easy experience. You also get to start out with an actual army instead of starting with 1 or 2 characters. This leads to more interesting strategies and means that the chapter works better in multiple playthroughs. The boss in this chapter is harder than the bosses in most first chapters due to the really high defense bonuses given by thrones. He’s not too difficult though, but he’s nowhere near as easy as other first bosses either.

Overall Rating: Pretty Good

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Chapter 2

  Another quality map. Chapter 2 has a gaiden requirement: Beat the chapter with all the villages intact. This works as an anti-turtle measure because one house will for sure be threatened by the pirates while the house Ronan visits could be under threat if the player doesn’t play fast enough.  Enemy reinforcements come at the side of the map and they appear early enough to be threatening to the player. Since the player is going to be moving off to the right that means that there are two methods of approaching the boss at the end of the chapter which fulfills the “multiple routes” requirement for good map design.

    The boss has fairly high avoid, especially for a boss that only appears in Chapter 2. The only problems I have with the chapter is that there are no enemies on the left side of the map and that Ronan is not a worthwhile unit to recruit. The only reason you’re going to be visiting the house is for the gaiden chapter requirement, not for him.

Overall Rating: Pretty Good

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Chapter 2x

               Not a fan of this one. Chapter 2x is hurt by fog of war, which prevents the player from seeing enemies coming. This hurts the map because it does a good job at disincentivizing turtle disincentives with enemy reinforcements. Enemies appear in forts that are either behind the appear or below them which is a good thing as it helps to punish turtling. One problem with the map is that the bottom lefthand corner is pretty easy to ignore. You could say that the extra torches count as an incentive but the player has to go pretty far out of their way to get them. For all intents and purposes there’s only one method of approaching the chapter (via the bridges) which means that the map has to get docked points for that. It’s an interesting twist that you have to capture the boss though in order to recruit him. I like that.

Overall Rating: Meh

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    Chapter 3

                    This map is an indoor-outdoor hybrid chapter (although that only affects one of your units, but hey credit should be given where credit is due). The map has 3 doors that you can open to approach although realistically you’re probably only going to open the middle one due to how convenient it is. However, there are still two methods of approaching the final boss.

                                 You’re also given an interesting side objective where you have to bring the children NPCs to the houses at the bottom right hand corner of the map. Half of the houses will immediately reward you for bringing their kids back. The rewards in this case are a shield ring and a Baldo scroll, both of which are excellent rewards which makes rescuing the children worth it. The other half don’t immediately reward you though. The reward for bringing back Corpul doesn’t come until Chapter 7, but you get a freaking Warp staff so it’s worth it. The other reward comes in the form of a recruitable Armor Knight which is...debatably worth it. Once again the game doesn’t tell you which NPC to bring to which house which can be a little annoying.

If you spend too much time recruiting the children enemies will spawn at the aforementioned red tiles. If you take really long then enemies will spawn near the boss. I think the map would have benefitted from enemy reinforcements spawning earlier as that would have put more pressure on the player. I do think it’s cool though that the enemy bishop will unlock the door and unlock the treasures. This ultimately results in him getting the Meteor tome, which will make the player’s life miserable. Although, you could argue that ballistic tomes force the player to play faster since nobody wants to deal with that crap.

                                       Overall Rating: Pretty Good

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            Chapter 4

                          Ah the infamous Chapter 4. This map begins with Leif, Karin, Rifis and Fergus in prison without weapons or stuff. Brighton, Lara and Makua (what is a Makua?) appear on the right and they’re the ones who have to bust the player out. Enemy density starts out incredibly small, but the chapter’s ingenious use of reinforcements quickly changes that. The near endless supply of enemy reinforcements puts an immense amount of pressure on the player. If the player plays too slow they will get overwhelmed.

                      The map has two really interesting side objectives that spice the chapter up. The first are the NPCs. In order to get the gaiden chapter they all have to escape. Keep in mind that enemies will try to capture them, and can block off certain passages which makes accomplishing this objective difficult. The second objective comes from Leif and Rifis’s stuff being put into treasure chests. Obviously these treasures are important, but at the same time if you have too many treasures you’ll end up spending way more time getting them which means that enemies will have more time to gain reinforcements and put pressure on the player. This also affects how the player will play Chapter 3 and who they give stuff to because if you need something to stay with you during the Manster Escape chapters then you’ll need to give it to Leif and Rifis.

  Then there’s the top portion of the map. It’s a tight squeeze full of enemies. It also has a recruitable character (Dalshien) that makes things tricky. If you want to recruit said character you’ll have to avoid killing him while dealing with the other armor knights that will slow you down. Meanwhile enemies will continue to pour in. If the player doesn’t play smart they will get boxed in from 2 different directions. There’s also an escape tile. If the player doesn’t want any character to get left behind then they have to have that character escape which has some tricky implications as to when you want your character to leave while still leaving other characters behind to fend off enemies.

          P.S. This map gave us The Green Brigand. That should make it awesome by default. Also, let us all take a moment of silence for the Green Brigand.

  Overall Rating: Excellent

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          Chapter 4x

                       Chapter 4x begins with the enemies being next to the player’s units, which forces combat to occur. The enemy formation at the start is interesting since you have a combination of Armor Knights and mages, both of whom can deal extensive damage to individual units if the player is not careful. Once again this map has NPCs that need to escape. Except the difference here is that the player’s reward does not come in until later in Chapter 6. However, I am docking the map points for not telling the player since it’s not obvious what the benefit here is.

                               Once the player has beaten this part of the map they are treated to recruiting Asvel, who is a fantastic unit. There is a room off to the left filled with neat treasure like the Brave Sword and the Life Ring. This also provides an extra way to approach the room that comes between the player and the escape tile. Last, but not least, there are enemy units that approach the player from behind in case the player plays too slowly. Once again I wish that they showed up a little bit sooner since the player will most likely be far away from them, but at least they’re there. One last note is that this is another fog of war chapter. It doesn’t hurt the map too much here though since the map is simply designed.

                                          Overall Rating: Decent

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         Chapter 5

                               This map has an interesting turtle disincentive: Nanna and Eyvel. Both of these characters are in danger since the game will throw difficult enemies at them. You’ll be forced to head to the corridor on the right just to avoid having Nanna get wrecked. Bytheway, Nanna gets reduced movement since she’s a dismounted troubadour in an indoor map. While Eyvel will eventually be able to beat whatever is thrown at her she’ll eventually have to face off against Mareeta who she will not fight back against. That will cause problems because Mareeta is a recruitable character so if the player chooses to kill her off they deprive themselves of a swordmaster with overkill offense. On the other hand, if the player doesn’t do anything, and just lets Eyvel sit there, the end result will be death for Eyvel. Plus you have to open the door to Eyvel and Mareeta in order to escape the chapter since there’s no escape tile before then. However, this only applies to the beginning portion of the map and no longer becomes an issue once Nanna is recruited over to the player’s side.

    Fortunately there’s a bishop with the Meteor tome that the player wouldn’t want to deal with so you could argue that that disincentivizes turtling. That and since you can capture him and claim that Meteor tome for yourself so that’s a thing. Enemy units are set up in groups that can threaten the player. For example, there’s the boss and his archers that can kill a unit that’s in the wrong position. There’s also a bishop with Meteor set up behind an Armor Knight and Soldiers. Last but not least there’s a whole group of mages down at the bottom as well. I am going to dock the map points though for having a random treasure that’s super out of the way. The map also fails to meet the “Multiple Approaches” requirement too.

Overall Rating: Decent

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Thoughts So Far: Thracia 776 starts with a bang. The maps pull no punches and do a pretty good job at requiring strategy out of the player. Turtling gets punished and the player is incentivized for going in different directions. The use of side objectives are also clever in these maps and require a great deal of thinking. This might possibly be the best collection of earlygame maps in the Fire Emblem franchise.