Let's Play - Berwick Saga!

[MacLovin]

Berwick saga seems to be realistic with the mercenaries

[Jedi]

Growths seem to be on the FE2, and TRS side of things haha

[BBM]

BTW,

is the boss music, and it's great. Took me a while to find. >_>

[Jedi]

BTW,

is the boss music, and it's great. Took me a while to find. >_>

That is quite an amazing piece of music

[BBM]

Chapter 2, Part 2!

CUTSCENE

This leads to another cutscene.

I bet this would be a very riveting plot sequence if I could understand Japanese.

I go to this place, and Thief and Lefty are here.

I check what price they are, and I notice that they're both under 500! Then I check the other people and see that their price has gone down too. Seems that the price gets halved after the compulsory map? So I hire Thief, Lefty, Dion, and Sylvia. I choose not to get Gloomy, because he can't get EXP.

This is our map. As you can see, we have to get to the other side of this river, but the bridge has been raised, so we have to walk all the way around! Curses! At this point, I check YayMarsha's video just to see if I'm on the correct map (this is generally the only time I use them, because I like discovering stuff for myself)... and I'm not! I do some digging into it, and it turns out that to unlock the first optional map, I was supposed to have Ribbon (whose name is actually Czene) talk to Reese. So, uh, I lost both her and that map.

Anyways, looking at the map, there's some interesting stuff.

You can see an Armour Knight and a Ballista there.

He's got yet another type of shield, and... holy fuck that defence. That's... wow.

Operating Ballistae seems to require an entirely different type of unit, so it's more like the DS FEs than the GBA ones.

There's also this guy, who's like a transport/convoy unit. He's just got one item. There's another unit like him, but with arrows made specifically for the Ballista.

Anyways, I look through my units, and even Sylvia with her strongest bow and arrows can't dent that Knight. Stumped, I look at YayMarsha's video again, and it turns out he's recruitable, and I'm just supposed to leave him alone. ALSO, remember that guy I've never used because he looks like a slightly worse Dion? Turns out he's a Pirate, and he can cross the river. Additionally, a unit standing on the white house above the river can let the bridge down.

SO, I reset to before this map (unfortunately I don't have a file before the last map), and recruit the Pirate (who gets named Pirate).

These are the units I take in. I leave behind Leon, Sherlock, and Chris.

yohoho!

chaaaarge!

Anyways, the objective of the map is for everyone to get through the escape tile in the top-right corner, but doing so early would just result in a loss of EXP.

I'm keeping my units in a very strict formation because I saw reinforcements from the bottom in YayMarsha's video I'm just cautious that way.

Reinforcements! Good thing I had the forethought to keep Izzy in the middle, right?

Anyways, as I have Sylvia attack, I notice that other than the Move, Item, and Wait commands, she has four more commands. The first is the regular Attack command, obviously. The next two are some more attack commands (not sure of the difference), and the last:

The last causes Sylvia to inflict some status on herself. The next turn, when someone tries to attack Lefty, the attack is negated, and she attacks his attacker. Sort of like a guard status, but it wears off after one attack.

Not sure if you can tell here, but Adel got attacked and then he lost his horse! wtf

curses he kept missing his Vantage hits

The level she got is DEF/?.

At this point, I check the screen of the transport who had that item, and what the hell? He just got a whole load of weapons out of nowhere.

BUT, as you can see, this turns out to be very beneficial! I have Elbert capture this guy to get all these weapons for free.

He can't take all the weapons, but this crossbow is really powerful, so I throw away Elbert's sword, as it's close to breaking and he got a pretty decent one from the transport anyways.

As you can see, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. That transport can get to the Ballista this turn to deliver the arrows. Dion needs one more hit to kill him, and has a 48% chance to hit. At the same time, Izzy's in danger where she is, and I have to move her back. What do?

NO GUTS NO GLORY

Dion attacks the transport. He misses. An enemy attacks Izzy. He misses too. I move Izzy back. Transport delivers the arrows. >_>

Anyways, I try that second command of Sylvia's, and it ends up being an attack with more accuracy! 33% more, in fact! This is pretty cool and she retains the ability to do so for several turns.

Ouch, forgot you could go on those tiles.

Now Dion also has an extra accuracy attack?

+DEF, okay.

+?. She actually misses a decent amount, so some SKL might be nice.

+DEF/SPD. He got this level on the bosskill. Also, Dion has some sort of ability where he can occasionally counterattack despite getting hit, with, I'm pretty sure, higher attack. He did about twice as much damage on his counterattack after getting hit than on his regular attack.

+SPD/?. Her offence is just really really good, which is why she gets so many kills. She procs multi-attacks so often, and she can counterattack even after hitting her initial strike. Despite her low Mt, she's probably got better offence than everybody but Ward. Her defence is shitty, but her AVO is very good.

HP/STR. STR is always good, though Elbert could do with some SKL- his accuracy is pretty crap. If only I knew what SKL was...

I forgot to get a shot of it while it was actually happening, but see that blue house that the transport with the weapons was standing on? It's a shop. I got some nice weapons from it for a relatively cheap price.

Anyways, kind of sucky I dished out 300-400 each for five units for one map, since the next one they'll be gone and I'll have to hire them at high prices. The map itself wasn't difficult, though it might have been had I not gone over the bridge. That would have allowed the weapon transport to distribute higher quality weapons to the other enemies. I also wouldn't have been able to face a lot of the enemies at a chokepoint like I did.

[BBM]

Chapter 3, Part 1!

Chapter 3 has started! After talking to the chick for a while, of course. No more mercs.

CUTSCENES

After completing all of them...

MORE CUTSCENES

After completing all of them...

EVEN MORE CUTSCENES

mandatory map start

Two things. This map is really large. And secondly, I've got 3 NPCs. Because I didn't want to screw up again with what I had to do, I checked YayMarsha's video.

See this temple at the other end of the map? I have to escort one of these three NPCs all the way to this, and then have Reese seize.

Anyways, because of the size of the map and the objective, I decide quickly that the best strategy is to huddle in a group to protect the NPCs.

NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING GET BACK HERE

A turn into the map, this guy appears south of the temple. Holy shit. I can only imagine that this is like those times you see the BK in FE9 before you can actually beat him- stay the hell out of this guy's way.

Now, because the AI is absolutely retarded, each of the three NPCs take a different road to the temple. One goes straight north, one goes straight east, and the third goes northeast. I decide that focusing on protecting this guy (since I only need to save one) is probably the smartest because even though he's already lost 5 HP, the one who went north has 10 HP and the one who went east has 15. There are also the least enemies in this guy's path.

First 3-stat level of the game, 10/10.

Look at this fucker on the right. All my guys have moved, and he goes out in front of them when three of the enemies have yet to go. Needless to say, he dies that turn. Screw you.

A few turns later, remember that guy in the middle:

He gets hit by a poison bow and whittled down to this health. At this point, he proceeds to do the most retarded thing in the world. Remember that duel house from Map 2, where Ward entered and he fought a duel to the death?

This bastard enters one.

I'm not making this shit up. HOWEVER, there's this weird cutscene. He gets attacked by the guy inside once for 5 damage, and then this other person comes and kills the guy in one blow. So he survives with 1 HP. Except he's poisoned, so he dies next turn anyways. Screw you too.

Showing this skill that Sherlock seems to have gotten. He can't use it every turn, but every now and then, he can do a Brave attack and attack them twice.

At this point, I forget to take a shot of it, but I learn that Leon has Charge. I don't think he had it from the beginning, so he probably learnt it after a level or two. Except this isn't the FE4 version of Charge. This is the TRS version of Charge, where he fights a duel to the death with the enemy, activatable as a command when attacking. The only requirement, as far as I can tell, is that the enemy must be able to fight back. So the skill's unusable against Archers and the like. But still, very good.

I also learn that Adel has some sort of skill where he throws his weapon at 1-range instead of attacking at 0-range. He can also only throw that special 6-use lance he's got, not his other one.

Also, somewhere around here, Thief, one of my mercs, comes out of nowhere (I guess she has some plot importance?) and attacks that super buff guy. She attacks him 5 times, doing 10 damage in total. The guy counterattacks and leaves her with 1 HP, and then some other guy comes and takes her away. The super strong guy also disappears.

daffasdf

The boss has a horseslaying weapon, where he deals massive damage (32 to Elbert) AND also kills his horse. ;_;

This results in me having to reset to the 10-turn mark, because as you can see, not only is Elbert badly damaged, my last NPC has three enemies bearing down upon him. So I reset so that Ward and Elbert are surrounding my NPC there, and so that Elbert and Ward are dismounted before fighting the boss. Also, Ward, like Sylvia, has a guarding skill, because I use it on the NPC, and when the boss attacks the NPC, he ends up attacking Ward instead and dying.

Ward is really really clutch, but ugh somehow he just ends up stealing all the bosskills. Even the mage sub-boss in the middle of the map, he procced Adept or whatever and ORKOed him instead of weakening him for Reese as I had intended.

Have fun with these cruddy levels to end the map:

BTW, Chris got several levels because there were a lot of reinforcements in this map that came to where she was in the middle of the map.

Overall, that was an incredibly annoying map. More frustrating than the time in PMD I had to escort a Shedinja into Mt. Blaze, and that's saying something. I hate escort missions, and how you have to plan your strategy around the terrible AI. Sometimes I think the people who design the AI for this type of stuff collaborate with those guys who advertise hair regrowth on the TV. They want you to pull out your hair and have to buy their shitty products.

[Jedi]

Talk about incompetent NPC's they run all over the place like headless chickens!

[BBM]

Chapter 3, Part 2!

Anyways, I get quite a bit of money after the last map, so the first thing I do is go to buy some more horses, since Elbert and Adel both lost their's.

FREE HORSES

I give the one that boosts something or the other to Elbert and the other two to Leon and Adel. After I finish buying those:

Back to the regular horses. I get one for Chris, but don't bother with Sherlock because he's trash. His multi-attacking abilities are good, but his accuracy is crap and he doesn't have the ability that Sylvia and Chris have that lets them attack with 33% extra accuracy if they didn't move that turn.

BTW, I should mention something I forgot to mention last map when I found out- remember that skill I spoke of briefly in the very first map that Chris seemed to have, where she could target other people, but it didn't really do anything? Well, I found out what it does. It lets you swap horses with your target. It didn't seem to do anything in the first map because everyone who could have a mount already did, but when I had her use it last map on mounted Ward when she was unmounted, she suddenly got his horse and became mounted.

As I go around getting my mercs, I see this new guy near Gloomy:

He looks even more gloomy than Gloomy, so I decide to name him Happy to try and cheer him up.

His stats and weapons are really good, but he's also a very high level. The combat isn't really worth it on its own when he steals da EXP. So he doesn't get hired (which probably doesn't make him very Happy).

Here, we can see that Thief is no longer there, but the armour knight who ran away in the last map of Chapter 2 is. I decide not to hire him, because while he has really great defence, 3 MOV is just not worth it. He gets named BK though, since Knight is taken. I hire Lefty, Dion, and Sylvia. After this, I buy some weapons and start the next map.

As you can see, this is similar to the map with Princess and Knight, where you've got two guys alone and they need to survive until your actual characters arrive. Also, we can see Gates here. The way Gates in this game work is that the enemy, since they control the gate, can move onto and through the Gate space freely, but you need to break them down before you can go through.

Also similar to that other map, there are very few visible enemies, meaning it's probably FoW and the fog isn't showing up properly. BTW, if you guys want to see how the fog/darkness is supposed to look like, check out YayMarsha's video of 1-2 or this map (3-1). My rom/emulator is a bit faulty I guess. Now, the objective of this map is to get the girl to talk to the NPC in the other corner of the map. After this, you have to have somebody (anybody) seize the fort.

As you can see, she's a Mage. That weapon of her's lets her attack twice, so it's probably got "thunder" as a suffix. If I had to guess the name of the spell, I'd say it would be Laimthunder, because it's Mt is cruddy. She gets called Mage.

This is the other guy, and he's a badass. He's got extremely high Mt, mostly because his sword is ridiculously strong. It has a drawback, however, in that it lowers his evade to 0, meaning he gets hit quite a lot. He's got high HP, but since he doesn't dodge much it goes down pretty fast. I name him GATECRASHER because even though he only has 29 Mt, he can destroy the gates in one round (possibly because of the ++ beside his Atk). He's also got the Guard skill, as I find out soon, which makes sense because otherwise Mage would get killed pretty quickly.

So yeah, I initially decide to just stay in place and wait for my units to come. So first, I just destroy the gate so I can face the enemies coming through. However,

This happens. I decide that I can't just wait for my units to come, since I don't know how long that'll take, and go down to the other corner. There aren't actually that many enemies in my path, and I have GATECRASHER (yes, it must be in caps every time) Guard Mage from all those who attack her.

After I talk to the NPC:

My units come directly afterwards, which makes me think that the trigger condition for them to come was that, not some turn. At this point the map is pretty easy. I try not to use GATECRASHER for too much because he's too high level to gain EXP, and I've got other peeps so it's good. Sylvia, Dion, Elbert, Leon, and GATECRASHER go back up, with GATECRASHER destroying the gate. Dion gets the bosskill. I should note that just like Sylvia/Chris's extra accuracy attack has a drawback (they must not have moved that turn), so does Dion's. It makes his defence 0, so using it on an attack that isn't going to kill the enemy can be risky. Of course, if he gets hit, that could just activate that countering ability of his where he deals extra damage.

Lefty and Mage go left to get the item, even though I have no clue what most of the items do. At this point, I decide to give Lefty the kills instead of Mage, because Lefty's been a real bro, while I can't see Mage being too useful for any purpose other than killing Knights. And even then, 6x2 would only be like a 3HKO, which isn't really enough considering her durability sucks and her evade is nothing special like Thief's, or even Lefty's, is.

tl dr; Mage is probably not seeing long-term use.

Lefty makes me very proud of my decision to pick him...

Before the map started, I checked the growths for Berwick, and they're awful. To give you an idea, Reese has the highest DEF growth in the game... at 18%. He's also tied for the highest HP growth with a few other people at 40%. Weapon level growths are high, but that's it.

Last level of the map, best level of the run. HP/STR/SPD, 10/10.

Pretty easy map overall. GATECRASHER has ridiculous offence, but he, along with Happy and Gloomy will probably not be used much until the enemies reach a level where they give EXP to them. At this point, my team seems to be something like Reese, Ward, Elbert, Dion, Sylvia, Lefty, Thief (hope she comes back), Leon, Adel, and Izzy, with Chris providing backup if there's a slot. The thing is that most optional maps don't seem to have that many slots. I might start hiring just one or two mercs before the mandatory map, even for the higher price. Adel might get the cut, because while Vantage is really broken, it's not broken on him, because his stats (and just accuracy in this game) aren't good enough to guarantee that he'll hit and negate the enemy's attack when they attack him. On the other hand, Charge is still good no matter what, and Leon's stats are better than Adel's.

TBH though, if I get enough good people who don't gain EXP, like GATECRASHER and Happy, I might just dump all these growth units and just make a team around them, lol.

[Jedi]

Chapter 3, Part 2!

Before the map started, I checked the growths for Berwick, and they're awful. To give you an idea, Reese has the highest DEF growth in the game... at 18%. He's also tied for the highest HP growth with a few other people at 40%. Weapon level growths are high, but that's it.

WHAT 18%? That makes Elibe Defense Growths look NORMAL

[PuffPuff]

Chapter 1, Part 3! This is me exploring the city map with no actual battling to it, so RayoR!

1.

Just a room with a bed and a desk. I go to the desk, and it has some options, but none of them have a discernable effect. I hope I didn't mess something up? That's it for that room. Going back out, I take the door that was directly behind where I started.

2.

This is the stat screen of the first guy I hired. He can use two types of swords, which is pretty cool. He's got some pretty nice Mt, but less accuracy than I'd expect from a sword-user. Possibly because he's using a type of sword that's less accurate, but stronger? Some type of "blade" class of swords? Anyways, I name him Gloomy for now since he's kind of depressing looking, and go over to Reese's stat screen to check which type of sword they have in similarity.

1. This formula is of the Zelda 2 formula.

Can't wait to give this game a shot!

2. The Shamshirs give off 3% crit in this game and TRS, it gives off 7%.

Chapter 1, Part 5! I think this is the last part!

1.

Nope! Bit of a dilemma here- should I move Princess first or Knight first? Both low HP.

I have Knight move first, but it doesn't help him because he dies anyways. Cough. Well, I reload at the 5-turn mark, where I last saved, and redo some stuff so Knight's not in such danger. In the middle of this, it suddenly dawns on me that the enemies appearing out of "nowhere" might just be enemies coming from inside fog. If that's the case, the fog isn't very clearly shown.

Is death permenent in this game?

Chapter 2, Part 1!

1.

lmao I think this is an actual Thief, but that name's gone, so she gets to be named Ribbon. She has no offence or defence, so uh.

2.

The green one also disables your attacking and defensive stats totally, so I'm guessing the difference between the green cross and the red one is that you can't Capture people who have the green cross.

BTW, Capturing is also really good in this game, because it's like killing an enemy, because they leave the battlefield, except it also gives you all of the enemy's items, as well as EXP.

1. Hol- Sh--

She looks like Feena. ^-^

2. Ah!

The capture system. I'll have too see how much more simularities are in the game! =)

Chapter 3, Part 2!

1. Anyways, I get quite a bit of money after the last map, so the first thing I do is go to buy some more horses, since Elbert and Adel both lost their's.

FREE HORSES

I give the one that boosts something or the other to Elbert and the other two to Leon and Adel. After I finish buying those:

Back to the regular horses. I get one for Chris, but don't bother with Sherlock because he's trash. His multi-attacking abilities are good, but his accuracy is crap and he doesn't have the ability that Sylvia and Chris have that lets them attack with 33% extra accuracy if they didn't move that turn.

2.

As you can see, she's a Mage. That weapon of her's lets her attack twice, so it's probably got "thunder" as a suffix. If I had to guess the name of the spell, I'd say it would be Laimthunder, because it's Mt is cruddy. She gets called Mage.

1. Wait a minute...horses actually have fatigue and can die in this game?

Looks like replacing them won't be easy either.

2. Agina looks very pretty. Like Katri.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Katarina

[BBM]

Dunno about Fatigue, but horses can definitely die. And yes, death (of both horses and characters) is permanent. You can buy more horses though.

[BBM]

Chapter 3, Part 3.

So basically, the job is to either have everyone escape through that green escape tile or seize the fort. Seizing gets me EXP, making that the obvious choice. Only five units allowed for this map, but it's pretty small. The orange escape tile is, I'm guessing, for enemies. Anyways, as you can see, there are horses on the map.

When I move Elbert beside one of them, I get:

An extra command. Using it gives Elbert a horse in his inventory.

As you can see, it's not a very good horse. It lowers my stats in something or the other.

The gimmick of this map is that there are enemy thieves who can also steal the horses and then run away through the escape tiles. Unfortunately, I never get any horses other than that first one, because the Thieves get to the others first. Thieves have this special ability where if they don't attack you and they're in forests, they can't be seen. So once they get into the brush, it's pretty hard getting any of them.

Leon is the victim of what seems to be a horseslaying... knife? Not sure. Horses can die either through horseslaying weapons like the boss of the mandatory Chapter 3 map carried, or just after taking some set amount of damage. I'm guessing the more expensive ones can take more damage. I give him the horse Elbert snagged, but it doesn't seem to be an item that you can just use.

Of note is this guy, who has an incredibly strong axe. It's got 30 Mt, but it also has really terrible accuracy, so it's pretty much impossible to hit with. Another guy also has this same axe, and he drops it, but I can't see much use in it with that accuracy.

The boss has a Brave Sword. He's not too bad though. After he lost his vulnerary, Sylvia hit him with her strongest bows and arrows. Then he attacked Dion. He hit him twice, but got nailed by Dion's rage counterattack where he deals extra damage and got wrecked.

I end the map with Lefty seizing it.

Pretty short and easy map. Disappointed I couldn't get more of the horses.

[Jedi]

Looks like an interesting map, and you were up again HORSE THIEVES.. how did it feel to fell your companions of crime? :P

[Othin]

Apparently horses are pretty heavy and therefore have stat drops if you carry them, but if you carry them out of the map, you get them free from the horse guy afterward. So yay. That's where most of your other free horses came from.

Aegina is pretty bad at the start with her Wind spell, but it becomes pretty scary if you can get her some Mag boosts, since the damage doubles and pierces Def. You also get some better Wind magic for her later on. In the meantime, she can hit really hard with any Fire spells you buy, but that won't let her get the training for her Wind rank she kind of needs in the long run if you care to use her.

Edited March 5, 2013 by Othin

[S.C. Amigo]

This is a question for Othin about the game.

I see there is a character called Olwen, who while being a High Priest will transform into a Raze Priest, which seems to be the Berwick version of a Dark Mage, after 20 turns go by in a chapter. As I know nothing of the story, why does he do that? Is he possesed?

[YayMarsha]

This is a question for Othin about the game.

I see there is a character called Olwen, who while being a High Priest will transform into a Raze Priest, which seems to be the Berwick version of a Dark Mage, after 20 turns go by in a chapter. As I know nothing of the story, why does he do that? Is he possesed?

As far as I know, he was cursed. There's a scene in the game where it shows him being attacked by some dark mages and Olwen loses control and turns into one of them afterward.

[BBM]

Don't worry, I haven't given up on this yet! I've just been really busy lately. I started doing Chapter 4, which is an Escape map in desert-like conditions, as far as movement hampering goes. But I thought Reese escaping was good enough, which it apparently isn't, and then I had to restart because I had a bunch of people too far away to escape in time.