Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 30: Man, oh Man, oh Manfroy
Part 29
Welcome back to Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War. Last week, we fought off like six armies all at once, and it was miserable, but on the plus side Hilda died. I think every game would be better if Hilda died. This week, we finish taking her castle and… *sigh* And we regret it, probably. This week, we start off mid-turn, so after moving most of my southern front up north toward the action, I end my turn and let the remainder of Hilda’s dorks take their shot.
… Why couldn’t they have gone down that easy last week, huh?!
Now, on our turn, the enemy is down to four dark mages with staves, and one dark bishop with a siege tome in the castle. I have Fee cut down one of the former…
And have Larcei and Seliph talk about love, because honestly I’m actually in no big hurry to finish this castle.
Larcei: I’m coming with you on this one!
Seliph: Of course you’re welcome to… but why?
Larcei: It’s odd… I’m actually a little scared…
Seliph: Odd indeed! If there’s one thing you’ve never been known for, it’s fear.
Larcei: It’s… I just…
Seliph: Shhh. I understand. Now come! After all, what could ever inspire courage quite like having you at my side.
(… Damn, Seliph, smooth like silk. You win a little more of my respect, bro.)
Larcei: Seliph…
This conversation gives Seliph +1 to his Strength; it was apparently supposed to be +3, but he was actually only one point away from his (oddly low) cap. Apparently Seliph only has a natural 25 strength cap! That seems weird considering his descent from Sigurd the Humungous.
And… sigh. Guess I should kill the stupid boss.
All right. Nothing left but sleep staves, and they can’t really hurt us. I have Fee and Altena purge them.
And now we have the problem dealt with. A little jumping around before I set off the next story segment; I have Finn zapped home, where he repairs and sells his Brave Lance. I’m going to have Fee buy it after we take Freege. Sorry, Finn, but you’re kind of just not holding up; you lasted longer than I expected you too, but despite being decent on offense you’re just kind of fragile. Oifey will also be benched here, I think, he can stay to defend Freege castle after we take it. Thankfully…
… The game is polite enough to tell us where the next part of the chapter will be coming from. So I do spend a turn or two moving the kids up to this gate and ready to rock. Seliph?
Seliph: But I can’t help but wonder… are the children at Belhalla still unharmed? I pray they are…
Lewyn: Funny you should say that!
(That’s not really the appropriate response to dying children.)
Lewyn: We’ve got a visitor who’s got a bit of news on that front, Seliph.
(“I’ve seen… terrible things. Thank the gods I have no sister, for I fear I would never be able to look her in the eyes again.”)
Felipe: On secret orders from His Majesty, the abducted children were moved here to Freege for safe-keeping.
(Orders so secret that we never actually got to see Arvis give them in that whole scene where he was desperately trying to save all the children at Chalphy and failing, being immediately caught, and then getting cowed into submission by a man infinitely less powerful than himself. STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD FOR ARVIS, GAME.)
Felipe: Rest easy, sire. They’re all hiding in the city’s abbey, and they’re all in good health.
Seliph: And all under Hilda’s nose, at that! That you’ve kept every last child safe in Hilda’s own city… color me impressed!
Felipe: Actually, sire… Princess Ishtar deserves your thanks. Without her generous aid given in secret, we could never have done this. No Imperial soldiers dared come even close to the abbey, on pain of the princess’s wrath.
Seliph: Princess Ishtar?! But why… why would she-
Felipe: Few people in this land are as kind and caring as Princess Ishtar.
FEW PEOPLE IN THIS LAND ARE AS KIND AND CARING AS PRINCESS ISHTAR.
YEAH SHE’S A FUCKIN’ TREASURE.
Felipe: All along, the princess has toiled behind the scenes to aid our cause. It was Princess Ishtar herself who ensured that every last child escaped from the bowels of Belhalla.
(“Then… how comes she’s… you know… literally banging the Devil?” “Technically he’s a ghost dragon.”)
Seliph: I see… at any rate, thank the gods for their safety. I’m certain everyone will be glad to know the children are in good hands. You have my deepest thanks, Lord Felipe.
Lewyn: Well, Seliph, that’s one job done. Good to see we’re finally getting results out of this mess.
(Hey, screw you man, I’ve conquered three quarters of the country.)
Seliph: And yet, Julia still eluds us… where could she possibly be?
Lewyn: The only options left now are Belhalla and Velthomer. It’s got to be one of those two.
Seliph: And Belhalla is where Julius awaits…
Lewyn: Yeah. We’ll need to find Julia first if we want to go anywhere near Belhalla. Without Julia’s power on our side, we won’t have a hope in hell against Julius.
(Again, not technically true, but you really should listen to him on this one.)
Seliph: But no matter what’s happened, Julius is still her brother. Will she even want to fight him…
Lewyn: … You’ll have to convince her.
(I mean, you’ve met Julius. It won’t be super hard.)
Ishtar: This will require that I leave your side, even for a while. I beg your forgiveness.
Julius: Feh.
Julius: Why the rush to get out there so suddenly, Ishtar? All the soldiers they could ever throw at us could never so much as scratch me. Why even bother with those maggots?
Ishtar: Yes, I know… but for me, there is no greater pride than being one of Freege’s great mages.
(“Saving all those children? Doesn’t even compare.”)
Ishtar: My parents and brother lie dead, and I cannot stand to leave their murderers to run amok… please. All I ask is a chance for vengeance.
Julius: It sounds as if what you really want is to following your family to death on a rebel’s blade! Are you so desperate to escape me, Ishtar?
Ishtar: No… nothing like that, Lord Julius. I love you. Nothing will ever change that.
Julius: Hmhmhmhmhm… I know.
Julius: Very well! Fight if you must. I won’t stop you.
Ishtar: Thank you… now, I beg your pardon. Meng! Bleg! Mabel! We sortie at once.
(Oh god, we are really scraping the bottom of the name barrel this time. ‘Meng’? ‘Bleg’?)
Julius: Now, then. I think it’s time we put an end to this sorry show. Deadlords, move out! And order Arion’s unit to attack!
(… wait, what?)
So. You may recall I told you to remember this moment.
It was important for two reasons.
First: This is the moment the war becomes winnable. You see, Manfroy is not… really all that into Loptyr. Oh, he worships him, but it’s not really about loyalty so much as sadism. Manfroy hates the world, and every single human being in it. His overall goal in life is nothing more or less than to make humanity suffer as much as possible. But he’s generally pragmatic about it. He knew the best way to hurt humanity was to revive Loptyr, who possesses incredible powers and views humans as little better than food to eat and pets to abuse. This moment, right here, is the moment that Manfroy, flush with overconfidence in the presence of his god on earth and having enjoyed a long decade and a half tormenting the entire continent, finally makes a mistake. He lets his sadism overpower his common sense for the first time. And in so doing, he gives us a real shot.
Second: Because he’s still Manfroy, he’s a total fuckwad about it.
Remember Ayra? Waaaaaaaaay back in Verdane, remember how we recruited Ayra. How we had to get to a castle to turn her non-hostile to us, only she was between the army and the castle and she was trying to kill us the whole time?
Yeah, that’s happening again. Only it’s Julia, our lil’ atomic vampire gatling gun trying to kill us. Of course she’s just as strong as she was when she was on our side, why would you even ask. Oh, and just for fun…
Here’s the map of what we need to achieve. The blue X is where we are. The red X is where we need to get to save Julia. The ravenous piranha is Ishtar’s army, waiting to pounce upon us and tear us limb from bloody limb. And to her right, marked by the douche, is Julius. You don’t have to fight him, and you in fact definitely should not because getting anywhere near him will also draw the Deadlords out to fight you, but of course has a siege tome now and will cheerfully wreck the shit of anyone who gets anywhere near him, therefore heavily limiting the space we have to move.
And of course, Julia will be trying to kill us the whole time, and we can’t fight back and risk killing her.
And hahaha, yeah, Arion will be showing up soon.
This is not going to be any fun, is what I’m getting at here.
First thing’s first, let’s take a look at our piranha.
Ishtar has taken yet another level in badass; her magic has gone up two points, skill by three, luck by 2, defense by eight, and resistance by one. And this time, she’s got an actual army with her instead of fighting us alone; three Snipers, three Heroes, three Sages, three High Priests with Fortify (of course) staves, and of course…. *snerk*…. Bleg, Meng, and Mabel.
They’re three identical Falcon Knights, both in picture and stats, so I’ll only be showing one of them. Despite the intensely crappy names, they honestly three ridiculously dangerous units. They all have Earth Swords, meaning any hit they land is going to heal them, and they’ll be hitting often what with that maxed-out Speed and solid 23 skill. And to make things worse, they all have the Nihil ability to prevent us from just shooting them down with arrows or relying on Astra to solve our problems.
So! This is going to suck. A lot. But thanks to Ced being awesome, there’s an option I can take to make this a lot more manageable. Lana sells her Silence staff, and he buys it…
And with his 35 fucking magic he can overpower Ishtar’s 32 Resistance to Silence her up to three times, basically removing Mjolnir from the equation for this battle. And Mjolnir is like… half of this battle’s equation.
I literally cannot believe I’ve never tried this before. From here, the army moves forward, Seliph leading the way; he’ll be attacked by quite a lot of people here, but he’s a living iron wall of destruction, and the more of these people I can lure away from the main melee, the better. So. End turn!
(*sigh* Must you, now?)
Arion: Chalphy’s fall to our blades shall be the first step to winning back our fatherland. Now, move in! Show these liberators one final defiance from the drackoknights of Thracia!
A solid enough start! We hurt one Falcon Knight, and didn’t take much damage in return. And now that Ishtar is in range…
Oh, that is delicious. Now, my first goal here is to kill at least one of these three annoyingly fast pega-bitches, but I also have to get Altena (and yes it has to be her, of course it has to be her) down to the castle to intercept Arion. I hate everything forever.
One down! Let’s keep this train rolling and clear out some more jerks.
Two out of three ain’t bad!
Okay, I think that’s about all the damage I’m going to get done this turn. And not bad at all, frankly, so I’m happy. I have Lene dance Altena, and warp her home with Lana.
Ignore the pentagram. It’s a good pentagram. Down at the bottom, Altena equips Gae Bolg and flies to just outside Arion’s range. The rest of his buddies don’t matter at all, but I don’t want her to fight him. There’s a reason for this, of course. It’s unsatisfying, but it makes her happy.
The things I do for my kids, I swear.
End turn.
… Huh. They don’t attack her? Or maybe they can’t damage her. I honestly am not sure.
*sniff*
I remember the last time I played this map.
I died five times on this battle alone.
And now it’s going better than the fight against the fucking Beige Knights.
I don’t understand what’s going on.
Altena: How could you be so craven?! How dare you place your vanity and pride over what truly matters!
(You tell him, honey!)
Arion: What do you want from me, then?
(God, don’t ask her that. This LP is not rated Adults Only.)
Altena: Take a good, hard look at Prince Seliph! Ask yourself, this: why is he still fighting? For whom is he out here day after day, setting his own suffering to the side?
Arion: So Seliph fights for justice, and I somehow do not? Is that what you’re trying to say?
(…. YES!)
Altena: Very well, Arion… if you won’t see reason, so be it. Come on. Kill me. End this. My… my life is in your hands. I die with no regrets.
Arion: A-Altena… very well. You can rest easy now. I get it. I was wrong… my mercenary days are at an end, and my final task is with Seliph. Wait… no. With you. I now fight for you, Altena.
Altena: Arion…
Yeah, it would have been neat if you’d done this a few maps ago, jackass, but Arion is on our side now. Or, well, sorta. He doesn’t join the army, but his unit becomes neutral and are programmed to stay close to Altena and be hostile to any Belhalla units that get near them. I know we all sort of wanted to kill him, but he still has Gungnir and I really just didn’t want to risk a screwup when things are going so well. I mean, I’m not even gonna use him. At this point, letting him get near the enemy would likely result in him rushing Julius and dying, which sorta defeats the point. Let’s just end this; time to wipe out the remains of Ishtar’s unit.
And now, a special treat. Since Ishtar can’t fight, we get to see a conversation that even I have never actually seen.
(…. ‘Nothing but kind’.)
(Just sayin’.)
Ishtar: … I may be in the wrong. But I can’t turn back now. Forgive me, Tinni… please….
And thus passes Princess Ishtar of Freege. She died as she lived: getting nuked by her cousins. And without her leadership stars…
All right. Now, the rest of the army is going to stay right where they fucking are. Julia cannot be trusted to not kill herself, or more troublesome to not kill me. The only people going forward are Seliph and Ares, who are going to go north across the forest, out of Julius’s range, and try to lure Julia into following them. Their resistance is tremendous, and they’re both on horses. Ideally she’ll try to kill them, fail, and be following them and unable to catch up until I can free her. This will take a few turns of nothing but movement because I will not be going anywhere near Julius.
Trust me.
She seeeeeeeeeees uuuuuuuuuuussssss…
Okay. There’s two things that could happen here. She’s either going to go east and cut us off, in which case we’ll be dodging vampire lasers the rest of the map, or she’s going to go north through the forest and we basically win the game. Let’s see!
…. Bitch. Okay, straight west you guys! Hide on the healing church, you beautiful bastards. God, haven’t used one of those in awhile, with those fifty healers in the army lining up to zap everyone with staves.
Dammit, Loptyrians, I am trying to flee in terror from a small woman.
Okay. We can do this. Ares heals up, and all we have to do is clear out those priests and kill Manfroy. Go get ‘em, boys!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Are you fucking kidding me.
Of all the.
That.
I.
I.
You.
HOW.
What the!
NO.
………………
Well. You know all those times when I was questioning my good fortune? The moments where I was like ‘oh, man, I don’t trust how generous the game is being, bet it’s gonna screw me later!’ Well, that just happened.
*sigh*
End turn. If I survive this, I will be genuinely stunned.
Oh hey it’s as though the Hel tome is really easy to dodge and you should have dodged it all along. But here we go…
(How do you know that’s Manfroy? You’ve never met him…)
Manfroy: So I did. And so long as I live, my puppet she shall remain! Hehehehehe! She’s every bit as helpless before my magic as her mother was…
Seliph: I should have known. If not for you, Mother… Gah! All of this misery… all these agonizing years… It was all your doing from the outset!
Manfroy: Heh… of course. Everything I’ve done has led to this moment: the revival of my lord Loptyr. And at last, it is so! Loptyr’s advent in the form of Prince Julius is complete, and darkness shall soon engulf the world. You cannot prevent it. Nobody can…
Seliph: Manfroy, you… Father’s grief… Mother’s despair… if not for you and your foul ambitions, none of this would have ever happened… Damn you, Manfroy! I cannot allow you to win! I will not! You’ll NEVER know mercy for your crimes!
Yeah, not the dramatic win I was hoping for after that great speech. But I guess I saw that coming. Reset! I start off a little differently; Seliph and Ares park themselves on trees. With the 20% dodge bonus, they should have no chance of being hit by Hel, and very little of being hit by Julia. We need to clear out these Dark Mages before we go for Manfroy.
Better! This repeats for all of them; one actually dies because they’re forced to attack at close-range thanks to being blocked off by their own buddies, which is great.
Yeah, yeah.
He only does one damage. Seliph could have survived him with no problem in any other situation. I hate this game sometimes. On our turn, I have Ares and Seliph each clear out a mage…
Then immediately go hide in the woods again. I am playing this as cautious as humanly possible, honestly. Better to spend three turns killing mages than let the reset counter jump up above the number of updates.
The enemy misses again on their turn, because they literally can’t not miss. Two more deaths…
All right! That’s that for dark mages. On the next turn, Ares is going to park his butt on the healing church forever, and Seliph goes to fight Manfroy.
You stay out of this.
Now then. It’s time. It’s time to face Manfroy himself. In direct combat. The enemy behind it all! The dark schemer who has given over our kingdom to the dark god. And he…
Is a loser. I mean, he’s not the worst enemy in the game. He’s okay. But he’s definitely no match for Arvis, or Ishtar, or… anyone with a holy weapon, really. Which fits, really; his danger is his skill and intellect, not his power. But considering he’s basically the final boss, it’s a little sad, still.
Seliph. Teach him some manners, bro.
And with two shots, he’s down to six HP. End turn.
I miss the days when I was the one with the Julia Beams.
*sniff*
God. That is just cathartic to do. Now. With Manfroy off to Hell, where I’m assuming he will meet Hilda and strike up a whirlwind love affair, Seliph can take the castle.
Lewyn: That’s right, isn’t it Felipe?
Felipe: My liege concealed the key within his most treasured memento…. The circlet once worn by Empress Deirdre.
(HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRK!)
Felipe: If we can find that circlet, sir, the Book of Naga is yours.
Lewyn: Deirdre’s circlet…
And that’s that! Ares runs toward the castle, with intent to lure Julia toward us. Of course she’s still hostile, why are you even asking? She has to talk to Seliph to get back to our side. Tee-hee, Fire Emblem hates you.
God, you are just like your mother. Seliph, go fix this please.
Seliph: It was Manfroy’s dark arts. He brainwashed you into his service.
Julia: Manfroy… that’s right, he caught me…
Seliph: Thank goodness you’re safe.
Julia: Lord Seliph, I…
Seliph: It’s fine, Julia. I know. Lewyn told me everything. I’m sorry… I failed to protect you.
Julia: No… it’s fine. Don’t worry, Seliph. I finally know why I’ve survived for all these years. I know my fate… I’m fated to fight. I’ll never run away again!
Seliph: You’re right… This is the will of fate, tragic as it is. None can afford to cower or flee now. Until the bitter end, we must march on.
And with that, Julia rejoins the team. She’s just as strong as ever, barring one fact; she’s picked up Deirdre’s circlet, adding Renewal and Miracle to her list of abilities, which is a heck of an upgrade.
But not as good as the one she gets from reaching Velthomer.
Lewyn: It worked… it really worked! And there it is, the Book of Naga! It’s yours for the taking, Julia!
Julia: … Oh! How strange… it feels so warm. It’s almost as if I’ve known this book all my life…
And now, the game is over. See, here’s the thing… Julius is just as dangerous as before, if not slightly moreso. His stats are slightly lower than his first appearance where you are very clearly not meant to fight him, but he still has Loptyr’s game-breaking effect, and his ability list is now Wrath, Pursuit, Nihil, and Accost. So he can double most of our army, null critical hits and combat abilities, and gets a huge critical boost when his health drops below half. And of course, he’s on a castle and gets the defense bonus and health regeneration that gives. Basically, he’s borderline invincible. The only real option if you lose Julia is to have Seliph fight him, and poor Seliph can only do about 15 damage per turn (if he hits) some of which will then be healed. While getting blasted in the face repeatedly, so you’ll need to get someone in to heal him between rounds, and they’ll very probably die to having Meteors dropped on their head unless you’re very lucky. And then there’s the Deadlords, who are just a pain.
But if you do have Julia…
Yeah.
YEEEEEEEEEAH.
Naga is the best weapon in the game. +20 each to Skill, Speed, Defense, and Resistance, instantly turns Julia into a hyper-fast, hyper-accurate, hyper-durable killing machine. And as a light magic tome, it has no disadvantage to any kind of weapon. And, of course, it negates Loptyr’s half-damage effect. Your reward for the most annoying recruitment in the game is the weapon that ends the game. Big time.
So.
It’s time to lay back and let Big J play us out, I think. I have her do the Arena, just for old times sake. Nothing even touches her.
Julia: Seven wins, gained two levels. +2 HP, +1 Speed.
About as good as can be expected at this point, honestly. And it…. Doesn’t really matter, you know? She heads to Belhalla, and Julius has no chance to hit her with Meteor, so he doesn’t even try. The Twelve Deadlords rush up to meet her, of course…
They’re going to regret this. The Deadlords are named for the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and each one has a different class and some very good weapons and abilities. They’re a dangerous group! Usually.
One down, eleven to go. End turn.
And then there were nine.
Sorry, seven.
Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Fun fact, ‘Lepus’ means ‘Rabbit’. And ‘Dead’.
Well I’ll be! Someone landed a hit! Too bad Julia did too. Four to go.
I’m so bad at counting! It’s actually three. Congrats to Equus the Bishop on surviving a round with The Julinator. But with that, none of the remaining Deadlords will actually take a shot at Julia anymore, so I’m just going to ignore them. It’s time for a family reunion.
(He isn’t wrong.)
Yes, that was a single round of combat. Julius procced his Accost skill and made the fight last an extra round. This… was not helpful to him.
Julius vanishes, the spirit of the dragon arising from the castle as the entire map shakes…
But it’s just bluster. Naga’s power has destroyed Loptyr’s vessel, and with its bloodline finally ended the dragon’s grip on this world is gone. Loptyr returns to whatever void it came from, and with the power that animated them gone, the few surviving Deadlords vanish.
I’m going to cut out here, but no sense waiting a week, huh? So see you tomorrow for the epilogue, kids. I think we earned it.
Final Reset Total: 30. Y... yay.
Epilogue
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