Berwick Saga Map Design Review Part 5

 Chapter 5 Gaiden - Mountain Hunt

The main objective of this map is to either defeat or capture the enemies on the right hand side of the map and then escape. These enemies will either be injured or crippled. Crippled enemies often have very limited movement, can't fight, or perform other actions such as using healing items. Injured enemies can be crippled if you deal enough damage to them. 

 There are invisible enemies on the mountains near the injured and crippled enemies. There's also a boss and some assassins off to the left, and a treasure chest in the corner. There are yellow units on the top right corner that might help these enemies, if you don't kill / capture enough of them in time. It's pretty easy to get to these enemies first, so it's not a big deal. The treasure chest is never threatened, so that isn't much of a positive for the map. It's an okay map, overall.

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 5 Gaiden: Lumiere

The easiest way to sum up this map is this: Mediocre and underwhelming. The main objective is to free the npcs in the bottom dungeon, and then help them escape to the top right dock. The path forward is very linear, and once again the treasure chest at the top is unthreatened. The only interesting part of the map are the enemy reinforcements that show up behind the player. This sounds a lot more interesting than it is. There's plenty of time to react to these reinforcements, and you can still play relatively slow while killing them. 

Overall Rating: Below Average

Chapter 6

The main objective here is to let at least 3 NPCs escape, and then to escape afterward. At the beginning of the chapter, there's a mage named Enid who has to talk to these NPCs. After she talks to them, they will move toward the to the bottom right hand tile to escape. There's also another mage named Perceval who will show up in the bottom left hand corner that she can recruit. There's an NPC at the top right corner near a shop that has to be talked to more than once. If you do, he gives you a nice, valuable forgeable item.  

What's neat is that the map forces Enid to go in multiple different directions, and there are usually three different areas from which enemies can attack the player. This requires the player to split their army up into three, and defend these enemies from three different sides. Unfortunately, there's a glaring problem: The enemy density at the beginning of the map is really low. There are very few enemies at the beginning of the map, which makes the beginning and middle parts of the map rather slow. The first half of the map can be a bit too easy, since the enemies will be relatively easy to kill.

Thankfully, the map gets more intense toward the end as more enemies show up. Once that happens, the map becomes a lot more fun to play. Here, you have to play fast in order to get your entire army to escape. This is when the player actually has to turn their brain on. 

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 6 Gaiden - Phantom Corps

This map is a snooze fest. It's an open field with no side objectives. The main objective is to kill or capture the boss. The boss is an armored unit with "Magicbane", a skill that forces magic users to re-roll their accuracy with a maximum accuracy of 33 %. Basically it makes magic users miss hitting him. This makes him marginally more difficult to defeat, but not that much harder. The only remotely interesting part about this map is that enemy reinforcements spawn at various points in time. Even then, they don't really impact the way that this map is meant to be played. How lame.

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 6 Gaiden - Food Supply

This gaiden chapter is better than the previous one. At the start of the map, there are enemies that will run away from you, who are carrying food. These enemies will drop food after you kill them. After the map is finished, you get paid more money for each bag of food that you bring back.* These enemies start out at a relatively far distance from the player, and will to try to escape off the map, so the player does have to move with some speed, if they want to get all the dropped food.

*(Don't quote me on that. I could be wrong. If anyone is more knowledgeable about how this works, feel free to comment on this)

The boss on the throne will run away after being attacked once. Since he's on the wanted list, you'll want to either kill or capture him. It's more fun to try and figure out how to kill / capture him. There's an extra side objective that can make the map more challenging in a fun way: The yellow units on the cliff.

If the player leaves them alone, they won't do anything. However, if the player chooses to come near them, they will attack. They're all really tough to kill, which makes the map a bit more fun if the player goes for this side objective. The main benefits are high amounts of experience, since the yellow units are all high level enemies. I believe one of them drops something, although I'm not 100 % sure. The map is not half bad, and has enough to it to keep it entertaining for what's supposed to be a fairly short gaiden chapter.

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 7

Despite what this picture may suggest, this is actually a Fog of War map. The main objective is to rescue this NPC called Vester, and then escort him and the other captured NPCs to an escape point on the left-hand side of the map. There are two doors that need to be broken down, in addition to a tanky armored boss, a bunch of archers, and several armored spear wielding enemies. Oh, and you need to get Vester to the escape point (while having all your units) escape by 24 turns. The turn limit is relatively forgiving, but considering everything that you have to do, that turn limit can sneak up on you, if you're not actively moving forward every turn.

Even after dealing with the enemies on the fort, you still have to deal with all the enemies near the escape point. Interestingly enough, this requires the player to split their army up into two different groups. There are several houses throughout the map that will give the player stuff. One of them is really off to the side, which requires some strategizing on the player's part to make sure that whoever goes to that house can still escape in time. Oh, and there are enemies that will try to attack the player from behind too. Overall, this map is exciting, and I've enjoyed playing it in every playthrough.

Overall Rating: Excellent

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 6
• Pretty Good: 1
• Decent: 5

• Meh: 2
• Below Average: 2
• Fail: 3

Berwick Saga Map Design Review Part 4

 Chapter 3 Gaiden: The Maiden and the Mercenary

Here we have the first fog of war map in the game....and it sucks. This map has two objectives: Get your mage Aegina to talk to an NPC, and then Seize. This map has one glaring oversight: It doesn't account for how awesome Sherpa is. Sherpa is basically a promoted Mercenary who is the only character in the game that has a traditional Fire Emblem style enemy phase. Everyone else in your army cannot counterattack if they get hit by an enemy. Sherpa can. In addition to being able to actually counterattack, Sherpa also has a stupidly powerful prf rank sword, the Brymranger, that can attack multiple times consecutively. 

These factors all mean that Sherpa is plenty strong enough to solo all the enemies and the boss near the seize point. As a result, it really doesn't matter which characters you pick, because Sherpa's all you need. Thankfully, as powerful as Sherpa is, he won't be able to break any other map in the game by himself. That still doesn't change the fact that this map is super easy to break.

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 3 Gaiden: Thieves and Ponies

This gaiden chapter happens to be a solid one. There are thieves in the top right corner of the map who are trying to steal horses. Kill this thieves, or get the horses first, and they go in your inventory and can be used later. Horses in this game are treated like another resource that the player is expected to manage. They have HP, take damage with their rider, and when their HP reaches 0 they die and never come back. Horses can be bought, but they're relatively expensive.

All of this explanation is to say that horses are valuable, so when this chapter gives you the opportunity to have more, you will book it. As a result, this works as an effective turtle disincentive. Terrain is also cleverly implemented to act as an obstacle to the player. The boss, Seamus, moves from his fort and can run away from the player if his HP gets too low. (I could be wrong about this, so feel free to correct me, if I got that part wrong) Killing or capturing Seamus nets the player a good deal of gold, and Seamus isn't a pushover. Overall, this map is pretty good and is fairly fun to play.

Overall Rating: Pretty Good

Chapter 4

This is an escape chapter that's designed as a defense level. At the beginning of the map, there are wounded NPCs who are trying to escape. At least 7 of the 12 NPC allies have to escape. Once they've escaped, you have to have everyone in your army escape by 24 turns. Another important note is that whenever someone in Berwick Saga is crippled, they might not be able to move their full movement range. This can further complicate the map, since you'll have to defend your allies for a longer period of time than you normally would had their movement been normal. 

This part of the map is fairly simple since all you really need to do is move to the center and put your tanky characters in the chokepoints. However, this map has several side objectives which make it more interesting to play. There's a random spot in the north that has a secret item, there are several bandits on the left that drop valuable axes, and there's a side objective of collecting droppable shields from enemies.

There are two recruitable characters on this map: Daoud and Larentia. Larentia is the only flier that you get in this game, and Daoud is an Axe Knight. If you want to recruit Daoud, you need to make sure that all 12 NPCs escape. Larentia will talk to Reese on her own and will essentially recruit herself. 

Another side objective that I almost forgot about are the assassins that will also show up on the left. They provide gold, experience, and droppable items. It's definitely worth it to kill them. 

What's interesting about escape chapters in Berwick Saga is that they lure you into a false sense of security. It's really easy to think that you'll be able to escape far easier than it actually is. The terrain on this map limits movement, so it can and will take you longer to flee. This actually puts a great deal of pressure on the player, which makes the map more exciting and fun to play.

Overall Rating: Excellent

Chapter 4 Gaiden: Color Chord

Here comes the second fog of war map in this game. It's also not very good. There's no turtle disincentive and most of the enemies are relatively weak. The only noteworthy part of this map is the boss, Penelo. There's a special cutscene that happens if you get Sherlock to attack him first. It breaks an item of his that otherwise would put your characters to sleep. Unfortunately, his avoid is high. Like, really high. Think Gel from Binding Blade Sacae Route. Fighting Penelo feels like a massive gamble because getting an accuracy of 50 % or more on him can be a real struggle. He also has Vantage, which is even better in this game because the moment somebody gets hit is the moment that combat stops. So what I'm trying to say is...

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 4 Gaiden: Children's Hero

While this gaiden map is better than the previous one, it's still on the underwhelming side. The main premise of this gaiden chapter is to have your thief Sedy seize a house on the top left portion of the map. Meanwhile, you have to avoid stepping into the range of all the yellow troops on the top right corner of the map. 

There's a spot on the map that will lower the drawbridge so that the rest of your army can cross over to the other side. Most of the enemies are weak, except for the boss and the goons right by him. Enemy reinforcements will show up, but by the time that they do, the player will most likely be close to beating the map. There are no side objectives here, and not much else noteworthy going on. Like I said before, this map is underwhelming.

Overall: Meh

Chapter 5

This map is a defense map that can be beaten faster by killing the boss. It also has a couple of smaller side objectives in the form of capturing an enemy thief, and collecting stuff from a nearby house. There isn't really much to say about this map. Various enemies will drop items for forging or weapons and gold. There's also a recruitable Armor Knight called Marcel. You just have to talk to him with Reese. 

There's a house that can bring your troops behind enemy lines straight to the boss. Keep in mind that the boss is tanky, and Goebbels (yes you read that right) is a really strong miniboss that will wreck anyone nearby. Overall, this map can either be played super fast for the LTC vets, or it can be played like a simple defense map and both types of players will find something to enjoy here.

Overall Rating: Decent

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 5
• Pretty Good: 1
• Decent: 2

• Meh: 2
• Below Average: 1
• Fail: 2

Berwick Saga Map Design Review: Part 3

 Chapter 2-1: In Pursuit of Thieves

Of the first few chapters in the early part of Berwick Saga, this is easily one of the worst designed. I tried to find a better picture of this map, but this is the best I could do. As it shows, The map is a little too straightforward:

1) Go to through the narrow part of the map and kill the relatively easy enemies.

2) Unlock the doors to get horses in your inventory (yes, that is a thing you can do in Berwick Saga) and the treasure.

3) Rush the enemies near the throne, kill the boss, and seize.

There are no turtle disincentives, the enemies are fairly easy in this chapter, and the treasures are never really threatened. There's not much else to say about this map. It's low key and pretty boring.

Overall Rating: Below Average

Chapter 2 - 2: Combat Training

This gaiden chapter is fairly interesting. It has a couple of neat side objectives that spice things up, and it rewards fast gameplay. Those interesting side objectives are:

1) There's an enemy that drops a rare Repair Stone. Instead of having Hammerene staves, this game has repair stones which will replenish weapon uses. There are roughly 2 - 3 of those in the game and this is one of them. That enemy leaves fast so you have to hustle to get it. 

2) There's a second enemy near the top of the map that's carrying arrows over to a ballista. If that enemy succeeds, then the ballista will have actual weapons to fire at the player. For obvious reasons, we want to stop this enemy from delivering those arrows.

Enemy reinforcements will also show up right behind the player, which creates even more incentive to move fast. So yeah, this map knows how to make the player move fast. The one problem that I have with this map is that once you're able to complete the side objectives, the map quickly loses steam. After a couple of turns, you can complete the map at your leisure. Still, I think it's noteworthy for those first few turns.

Overall Rating: Decent 

Chapter 3: The Three Bishops

Chapter 3 gets my vote for being the best designed map in the game. I realize that having that title designated for a map this early into the game implies that the maps in the later part of the game suck. This could be further from the truth. There are a lot of well-designed maps that are fun to play. This map, however, is on another level. 

The main goal of this map is to escort three NPC bishops to a seize point on the opposite side of the map. A map design thread on reddit summed up how the three NPCs act on this map:

A couple of things about the priests:

• You can't control them and they will not wait for you. They will always try to move forward, except if there as enemy in the way or if your units are blocking specific tiles.
• Each priest will take a complete different path. Do you see the white tiles? These are "road" terrain and each priest will follow one of the routes.
• The priests are indeed very fragile. Also, each one must stop at a certain point for special events along the way.
• All 3 carry healing magic and heal your units under some circumstances.

Source: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/3g6uez/berwick_saga_map_design_thread_chapter_3/

So yeah. They will move in 3 different directions, and in order to keep up with them, you have to move pretty fast. 

This map reminds me of Conquest Chapter 17, where you have to protect Saizo, who is an NPC that will continue to move forward. Funnily enough, Berwick Saga came out about 10 years before Fates did, so technically Conquest came up with a similar idea to what Berwick Saga did here. Personally I think this map's execution is better since there's no Dragon Vein to trap these NPCs. You have to move forward, and there's no way to trivialize this aspect of the map.

The central path is near water, where pirates will walk on it and try to swarm the bishop. Each bishop will visit a house halfway through their route. These visits will trigger unavoidable events. One of these events reduces that bishop's HP by 15. If you don't want the bishop to die, you'll have to make sure that his HP is higher than that, which puts even more pressure on the player. Another house is guarded by a stupidly powerful boss named Chaos. The best way to deal with Chaos is to bring Faye, who will talk to Chaos, and a prescripted event will ensue.

The overall effect is that the player has to put a ton of thought and effort behind who goes where, and how they're going to beat the level. The boss also spams a skill called War Cry, which stacks the damage that he deals and his hit rate. Despite being at the seize point, said boss will move out of his spot to attack your units. Those War Cry stat stacks are scary, so be warned.  

In case all of that wasn't enough, this map is chock full of side objectives! There are 4 citizen requests that can net you extra money and items in addition to two different houses that also give you stuff on opposite ends of the map. There's a recruitable character and a mini-boss that shows up behind the player. Killing that mini-boss is tough. Like, he has a knife that gives him an automatic 80 % crit rate. No, I'm not exaggerating or being hyperbolic. It's literally 80 %. He also runs away off the map super fast, so you only have a couple of turns to kill him. That being said, killing this mini-boss results in the player gaining extra money, which makes it worth it. 

Then there are enemies that drop various amounts of money on the top left corner on the map, that act as their own fun side objective. Oh, and the pirate fort also contains treasure for your pirate, Axel, to take.

In conclusion, this map is beautiful! It's tough, it requires huge amounts of planning and forethought, and there's pretty much something for everyone in your army to do. It's only tough during your first playthrough. On subsequent playthroughs, it gets easier as you learn how to handle the obstacles thrown at you. It definitely feels rewarding to both play and beat this level. Easily one of my all-time favorite maps to play from a Fire Emblem inspired game. It's up there with the Manster Arc and escape maps in Thracia 776.

Overall Rating: Excellent!!!

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 4
• Pretty Good: 0
• Decent: 1

• Meh: 1 
• Below Average: 1
• Fail: 0