Up to Chapter 9 - Berwick Saga

 

When I finished my last post, I was on Chapter 5. Now, I'm starting on Chapter 9 (and I've done the sidequests too btw). Here's an update of my team:

• I permanently recruited Dean, Volo, Sherpa, and Arthur. Izerna and Dean got promoted! 

• Right now, I'm trying to get Sherlock promoted. His bow skill rank is high enough, but he's about 2 levels shy of promotion.

I came across enemies with a skill called "Overwatch". Overwatch is a skill where the first time someone enters the bow user's range, they get to attack that enemy before that enemy completes their move. If their hit succeeds, the enemy stops in their tracks. It's extremely annoying since your only recourse is to get lucky and dodge the hit. Thankfully it only happens once, so even if your first unit gets hit, you can attack those annoying archers with a different unit.

There are a lot of enemy armored units who can be straight up scary. They're accurate, they're durable, and they hit like a truck. Thank goodness for Aegina and magic. It feels like mages like her get that special niche of undermining armored enemies. This is how armored enemies should feel like when it comes to fighting. I wish other Fire Emblem games designed their armored enemies like this. Wyverns are also tough enemies since this game doesn't give you access to tons of weapons that deal effective damage to them.

I didn't actually kill the wyvern on this level. I basically used Elbert's Provoke skill and had him soak the damage. 

Escape Maps

There are a lot of escape maps in this part of the game. There are also a lot of "defend NPCs and let them escape" maps here too. They often start out tame, where you don't have many enemies to fight, if you even fight any. Sometimes the map will begin with no enemies whatsoever. Then, each turn the pressure increases where more and more enemies show up and start charging at you. I really appreciate this approach. These chapters put the player on the ropes and force them to escape. 

Alternatively, there are escape maps that are designed like defense chapters. The best example of this is chapter 6 where you have to use this lady named Enid to talk to numerous different villagers before letting them escape. It's a fun twist on the defense map, because you have to sit there and defend NPCs while the enemies pour in and try to kill them. 

In a lot of cases you have to wait until the NPCs make it to the escape tile on the map, which means that they set the pace and tempo of that map. Thankfully, I've managed to rescue all the NPCs on each of these maps. Chapters 8 & 8-1 spice things up a bit by giving you NPC ballistae that defend your base for you. It's actually pretty fun watching allies either snipe enemies or weaken them up so you can deliver the finishing blow. I think this game reinforced my love of escape chapters, and is proof of why the escape objective is my favorite in the series.

Question: How does "weapon failure" work? There have been several instances where I try to attack with a member of my team and it doesn't work. "Weapon failure" is brought up as the reason why. It's pretty annoying, and it's giving me "missing staves" from Thracia vibes. 

Another thing I've noticed is that not only does this game give you multiple ways to spend your money, it also gives you multiple ways to earn it too. Capturing enemies not only nets you extra stuff, but it also can earn you some money since enemies will pay for their captured comrades. Killing certain enemies can net you money if they're on the wanted list. Getting rare items for that item collector is also another way. It really adds to the resource management aspect of this game, which is pretty incredible. 

Another Question: Are there any ways to improve your chances of capturing enemies? As of right now, it seems random / luck based if you can capture enemies. I think it'd be fun to be able to capture more enemies.