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. 

More Berwick Saga Fan Gushing

 

As you could tell from reading the title, I really like this game a lot! I just completed Chapter 5, and it's been roughly 2 months since my last Berwick Saga post. So here I go.

The Map Design

I admit that I have a relatively long way to go, but I've been impressed with how consistently good Berwick Saga's map design is. I've yet to come across a map that I thought was genuinely bad, or unfun to play. I'm including the side quest maps in that too. That's an impressive track record. Right now, the maps that stand out to me are:

• Chapter 3

 Chapter 3 is my favorite map in the game that I've played. The NPC priests force the player to move fast, and they also force the player to move in different directions. These priests move pretty far, so you have to maintain a fast pace throughout the level. There are also plenty of side objectives for the player, which means that there's never a dull moment. 

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is another fun map where you're defending a group of NPCs that are traveling south. Enemies will approach you from the left, and there are also enemies on the "Wanted List" that you can kill to get more money. This chapter struck me as flexible in its design. You could choose to play it somewhat slow, or you could choose to go after all the juicy enemies with a bounty. You also got to choose how many NPCs could escape to the tiles at the bottom of the map. I managed to get every NPC to escape, and it was fun. 

• Chapter 4-1

Wow! Those enemies on the opposite side of the bridge are really, really, strong! Like...I feel like a genuine idiot for wanting to pick a fight with them. I managed to kill most of them before calling it quits and escaping. Still, it's a cool concept for what appears to be a stealth map. 

Chapter 5

• This is a defense map with the side option of being able to kill or capture the boss if you're feeling more aggressive. It also hands you Marcel, a recruitable ally with the super useful Guard and Shieldfaire skills. In order to recruit him to your side permanently, you have to make sure the villagers are all alive by the end of the chapter. The map is pretty good. You still have to move more aggressively, but it still has the feeling from a good siege map. Goebbels is a scary boss, but you at least don't have to face him if you don't want to. The real threat in this map are all the enemy cavaliers. Not only do they have high movement, they can dish out some nasty damage. Oh, and they all have Canto for some fun hit and run tactics. Lovely.

Fog of War

Something else that I'd like to comment on is how Berwick Saga handles fog of war. In traditional Fire Emblem games, fog of war is a mechanic that makes it so that the player can't see where enemies are, but the enemies can see you. This is an unfair disadvantage to the player, and most fog of war maps aren't fun to play. 

Berwick Saga makes it so that enemies can't see you when fog of war is out either. This levels the playing field and makes fog of war maps tolerable at worst. The map where you get Sherpa was actually fun to play. Coming from someone who dislikes fog of war, that's pretty high praise. Also, is it just me or does Sherpa look like a happy, non-edgy Guts?

Balanced Difficulty

Another impressive feature that I really like about Berwick Saga is that it's managed to remain just tough enough to make me think, while still being fair. When a character of mine dies, I know it's because I made a tactical error. I never felt like the game threw some unfair nonsense at me. I made a mistake and got punished for it. The enemy stats so far are tough enough to be threatening, but they're not anything that my army can't handle.

Bosses can be legit scary, which is what they should be. Goebbels in Chapter 5 can practically kill most of my troops in 1 - 2 hits while his defense is pretty high. This is what an Armor Knight boss should be. That's a tricky balance to maintain, especially when you consider the fact that difficulty is something that the Fire Emblem franchise doesn't always design well. 

Minor Quibbles 

• Weapons breaking based off RNG doesn't sit well with me. You can't tell when your character's weapon is going to break other than getting a vague feeling that you've used it a lot. 

• I went back and re-read what I wrote about the changed turn order mechanic in my previous Berwick Saga post, and I still stand by it. I am not a fan of this different style of turn order.

Overall: This game is living up to its reputation of being really fun to play. If the game keeps this up, Berwick Saga will be up there with Thracia 776 for its top-tier gameplay.