It's been a while since I've written on here. Sorry about that. There are a few characters in Berwick Saga left to talk about. We'll start with the "Gotohs." For those of you who don't know what I mean, Gotoh characters are late joining units that are usually pretty powerful, but don't join the player's army until near the end of the game. Berwick Saga has three examples of these types of characters, starting with...
Paramythis
Paramythis is the best of the late joining units. She has a horse, she can heal, she has access to an awesome light magic sword, and a cool skill set, one of them being Pursuit. Wait, did you just say that Pursuit is a skill in this game?
Anyone familiar with Kaga's Fire Emblem games will already be getting flashbacks to Holy War where Pursuit was a skill that was absolutely needed to double attack. Rest assured, this is not the case in Berwick Saga. While it may be more difficult to double attack in Berwick Saga, you don't need to have Pursuit to double attack in this game. The Pursuit works in Berwick Saga is like this:
"When this unit's AS exceeds enemy's AS by 5 or more, +1 number of strikes."
It's basically how double attacking works in Awakening and Fates, but as a skill. Being able to double attack even if she's dealt damage is actually very good. She has another skill that multiplies her avoid bonuses from terrain, which is nice. She can also recover her own HP thanks to Imbue. She's also immune to getting injured and crippled, which means that she won't randomly lose her weapons, nor will you have to worry about her being unusable for the duration of a map.
Paramythis's only real downside is her availability. You can only use her for the last 4 chapters of the game. That being said, she's awesome when she's there, and she'll definitely be a welcome addition to the group.
Lynette
Lynette is a character who joins you in the last chapter of the game. She can use bows and magic, and she has an interesting set of skills that make her fun to use. Her first skill is Charisma, which gives all allies within 5 spaces + 3 Hit. That may not sound like much, but keep in mind that this is Berwick Saga, a game where the RNG can still screw you over even when your accuracy is between 80 - 95 percent. Every little bit of additional accuracy helps. Lynette also has another skill that gives neat bonuses within 5 hexes called Defender. Defender buffs all allies defense by 5. Given how strong the enemies are in this part of the game, that + 5 defense is really helpful.
She also has Magicbane, a skill that activates whenever enemies with tomes attack her. Magicbane resets the RNG and makes it so that the highest enemy accuracy with tomes is a 33 % hit rate. It basically makes it so that she pretty much dodges any magic attack enemies throw at her. This is also pretty helpful when the final chapter has an enemy with an infinite range ballistic siege tome. The first enemies you have to deal with in the final chapter are also tome wielding enemies AND the final boss in the game uses magic. As you can see, this skill is super useful. Magicbane also makes Lynette immune to the Berserk and Sleep statuses. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
She also has Blessing which heals allies within 3 spaces. She also has another skill that gives Reese (the main character of the game) an automatic 100 % crit rate if she's 1 space away from him. This is hilariously abusable, and I encourage playing Berwick Saga to take as much advantage of this as humanly possible. Equip Reese with his powerful Prf rank Light magic sword, have Lynette next to him and watch Reese cut down armored enemies like a hot knife through butter. It's an amazing sight to behold.
Lynette also has her own personal Thunder Tome which can nuke armored units into oblivion. She also comes with her own Killer Bow, which has very good range for a bow in this game. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I was able to get a lot of crits with this weapon, and it was funny to just watch enemy mages get destroyed.
Overall: Lynette has amazing support utility and two awesome weapons all to herself. For a character you only get to use for one level, she leaves one heck of an impression on the player.
Saphira
Saphira's a weird unit to talk about. You get to use her in Chapter 4, which means that she's not a "Gotoh", but she never permanently joins your group until you're within the last 4 chapters of the game. You don't even need to use her very much to fulfill her join requirement. When do you use her, she's basically like your other healers, Izerna and Owen, but worse.
Saphira doesn't promote until the last 4 chapters of the game. When that happens, she gets exclusive access to the Silence skill which prevents enemies from using dark magic for 3 turns. That's actually pretty helpful since dark magic wielding enemies become a lot more prevalent in the latter part of the game. Resistor also gives allies within 3 spaces + 5 Resistance. Given the fact that most of your army doesn't really have resistance, this also pretty helpful.
The only other really important fact about Saphira is that if you want Paramythis to be permanently recruited into your army, you have to first permanently recruit Saphira too. That's arguably the biggest reason to actually use her, as sad as that is.
Overall: Saphira isn't really worth it for most of the game. She only really starts to shine near the end. The main reason I really ever used her was because I wanted Paramythis to permanently join my army.
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Derrick Tier
Derrick is to Berwick Saga what Arden is to Holy War: An Armor Knight so bad that he's practically a meme. Even Fire Emblem wiki calls him the worst unit in the game. Here's what they have to say about him:
Derrick suffers from so many problems as a unit that it is no wonder he is the worst unit in the game. He is in the Armored movement category, meaning even with his pathetic 3 movement, he cannot traverse sand, cliffs, or shoals at all. His equipment growth rates are among the worst in the game, and while his HP and Strength growths are somewhat decent, he has a 0% growth rate in his best stat, Defense. Not only that, but even though his 20% Speed growth is only below-average, his strength is so pitiful and his equipment so heavy that he can essentially never be expected to have positive Attack Speed (unless he is fully unequipped, in which case he is not even doing his job as a tank). Finally, the fact that he cannot be hired for main missions until he is recruited massively limits his worthwhile availability.
Derrick's only skills are Mercy, Throw, and Axe Defense. Mercy in this game is pretty much like in other Fire Emblem games: It prevents killing from happening. It's slightly better in Berwick Saga because it's helpful for capturing but there are other units that can do this better than Derrick.
Throw lets Derrick attack enemies from a distance with an extra boost in accuracy. It's not as useful as it sounds. Axe Defense lets him block hits randomly by sacrificing his current weapon's durability. Sacrificing weapon durability in a game where most axes break based on an RNG percent isn't very useful.
Overall: Unless you're doing a challenge run or you're doing it for the lols, it's not worth it to use Derrick.
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Here is my overall tier list of Berwick Saga units:
