Let's Play Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lumly Character

It’s come to my attention that there seems to be a lack of late 90’s JRPG’s being played within the halls of the Let’s Play forum.

It is time to change that. Presenting, perhaps my favorite game of all time, released in 2000 here in America, Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Calibur! This game is the best. Hands down. No arguments to be had by anyone.

In this game you play as Magnus Gallant, a young captain in the Palatinus' Southern region, basically the south of this kingdom and you are a captain in that army. A whole bunch of stuff happens (Which you’ll see here), and you fight bad guys from all sorts of places, including eventually demons and stuff like that! Basically it’s awesome. Combat is based on a map where your armies are represented by their captains, and they walk around on this level map and then when they come in contact with an enemy captain (Or if you look in the right places, random recruitables), you zoom into the battle, where your choices really matter.

You set up each captain’s army before the battle, and there are 9 spaces. Placing people in different rows gives them different attacks, ie; the basic soldier unit is a squad of 4 shitty pikemen. When placed in the front row, they get 2 attacks per battle, as opposed to any other space where they only get 1. This is important; it emphasizes their place as a fodder for the front row to soak up hits (You can’t attack past a character unless the attack is ranged). The system is simple, but creates a very big breadth of combos and situations and decisions to make. It’s all very exhilarating (no it isn’t, but it pushes all the right buttons for me).

So, anyways, that’s the basics. As stuff pops up it will get explained. But sit back, relax, and enjoy this N64 Classic from Atlus (Later Square Enix when it was re-released on the Virtual Console (GO DOWNLOAD IT!))!

Current Party

• Derpus' Party:
  • Derpus Gallant, Male Gladiator
  • Darkluna, the Female Cleric
  • Eblina, the Female Sorceress
  • Minardii The Male Fencer
  • Zerig, the Male Knight
• AaronZerker's Party:
  • Aaronzerker, the Male Berserker
  • MindElement, the Male Knight
  • Jodie, the Female Cleric
  • Freddy, the Male Fighter
• Soli-Chan's Party:
  • Soli-Chan, the Female Sorceress
  • Zora, the Female Cleric
  • Annette, the Female Amazon
  • Ravenholme, the Male Fighter
  • Claris, the Female Valkyrie
• Dio's Party
  • Dio, the Male Gladiator
  • StfSergeant, the Male Fighter
  • Erudite, the Male Fencer
  • Troi, the Male Phalanx
  • Etoile, the Female Amazon
• Nate's Party
  • Nate, the Male Berserker
  • DwnTheDrain, the Male Fighter!
  • Dawson, the Male Zombie
• Bladida's Party
  • Bladida, the Male Beast Tamer
  • Kathy, the Griffin
  • Marlow, the Male Fighter DEAD
  • Barnya, the Amazon
• Leia's Party
  • Leia, the Female Blaze Knight
  • Cybil, the Female Amazon
  • Arnold, the Male Fighter
  • Jenna, the Female Amazon
  • Deborah, the Female Valkyrie

Ahh...I thought you were going to talk about OGRE

Cool. I have fond memories of playing this an entire winter break back in college. It's on my To Revisit list, looking forward to seeing how it holds up compared to my most likely faulty memory.

So as the game starts, you are given some background. There are some rebel uprising happening, and the army is stretched to the limit. That’s where you come in. The first interaction with the game is creating a name. Normally you are Magnus. But this is a BF let’s play, so obviously that won’t stand.


A long and storied name, passed down from one herp to the next.

You also get to pick your birthday, which translates into the in-game calendar. When it becomes your birthday in game, you get cool stuff. Sometimes. There's a chart to pick the 'best' birthday out there, but I don't play to game the system (Totally).

Next, you're faced with a series of questions. These decide what type of party you're given when you start the game. Choosing each answer gives different attributes to different blah blah blah it's all very boring. Basically, I went for a badass knight seeking reform from the corrupt ruling party (Something which is very in line with a story progression later on down the line).


Like an Occupier, but with a sword and commanding a dragon.

These question keep hitting you. Six of em. Here's a screen dump;


This is normally considered red flag behavior


Mom always said "Might makes Right"


Well, mostly.

Anyways, after all of this, you're asked what your element is. There are 6 pedras (that is what they call elements), and the way ot use them is to do enough attacks during a single round to increase your action meter and then fire that bad boy off. It basically defeats whatever you use it against, but they have a long cooldown time.

Derpus is definitely a Raging Flame.


After this we're decked out by the priest man who does this entire ceremony (This land is big on ceremony, and funny hair). This is all stuff that will, coincidentally, perfectly fit whatever troops we were assigned by the earlier questions. We get to see those next (And is easily one of the most exciting parts of the game! Hopefully a dragon!).

Prologue!


We are introduced to General Godeslas. He's the leader of the army here in the south, which apparently means he gets a throne. They hand out thrones pretty willy nilly in this game. He's got a funny face.


Seriously. Look at that face. LOOK AT IT.

He gives a very impassioned speech about how we're all the saviors of the south and whatever. He's got a funny face and his character looks like he has a huge mustache.

After that, we're told to go to our advisors and check em out. Mine's a gandalf clone named Hugo (non-negotiable). I meet him, and he teaches me all about warfare (Sort of). Then we meet my rival, this game's version of Gary from Pokemon. His name, is Diomedes. Hugo makes a joke at his expense about needing training, and of course Dio takes it like any good hot head would;


Why's everyone always picking on me!

We move on to our first assignment, which is training. Which, since this is an RPG, means wandering around the nearby world and running into bandits and monsters, both of which Hugo promptly tells us are in abundance for some reason. We'll figure out the why later on, all that is important right now is that we kill.

Hugo starts each level by giving us some advice with a top-down perspective of the map. It looks like this:



Blue is us, red is enemy, green is neutral. The squares are the strongholds, there's one for each side on every map (They sometimes move around depending on the story of the given battle). There's plenty of random monsters and objects to run around into as well, but not on this level. Only items on this level.

So off we go. I'm not given time to deck out my guys for the first battle so we'll get a taste of that in the next couple of posts. Next time on Ogre Battle 64; the battle of Theodricus Mine!

Before we even get out of the planning hall, Diomedes throws down the proverbial gauntlet, demanding to duel for the right to lead the army. I turn him down, which does not agree with his sense of douchebaggery.


It's like playing the race card

Hugo comes by and basically tells Dio to shut the fuck up and listen to me, and my horrific braid.


This is what passes for humor in this game. So get used to it. HA HA.

We take to the field, and deployment begins. I quickly throw six guys out (There's never a need to field your entire roster, though there's nothing wrong with doing so. This is a training mission; I really probably only should have fielded Derpus and Dio), and send them on their way.


There a little stacked up. That one on the right is a Witch!

We ended up getting some really awesome units. I'll have full breakdowns when we can get into an equip screen.

We begin our massive swath of destruction by cutting straight to the mine. I've played this battle maybe about 1000 times in my life (A little hyperbole, but not by much).

Here's what combat looks like;



Placing units in different rows gives different attacks depending on what class they are. Sometimes different equipments can also effect those things. That was me hitting an already beat up squad. However, usually squads with beasts only have 3 units because of how big the beast unit is; it takes up a lot of space and you can't fit too many more units.

Anyways, my guys basically just pillage across the map. we get to the mine, and we find out that the reason that they are there, is that they are rebels;



We stumble upon the first of the enemies real units, and the fight begins. Sir Blackbern begins the fight with a round of blows from all his troops;


Blackbern needs a lesson in formation; those swordsmen are going to waste not being on the frontlines!

The campaign goes well. We suffer only three losses, all soldiers from Blackbern's army. Everyone else performs admirably and soon we are on the doorstep of the Mines.

The entire reason we're out is because the town has been under siege by bandits and monsters. Apparently no one thought the two were related?



The battle against the final beast tamer goes ridiculously well. We only have to fight him twice with Derpus and his critical crazy units (Seriously, in both fights combined, 3 total rounds of combat, we got 5 criticals amongst the non-Derpus soldiers, and then Derpus himself got 2). In the game, when fighting bosses, if you can't kill them in a single fight, you auto-lose and get pushed back a little bit, but your units automatically start attacking the people again.

So we defeat the evil barbarian rebel leader. However, he has an evil secret!



What he was planning was to be a secret distraction force, since the prince is apparently visiting. The main attack force is attacking prince right now!

We have to be off! The barbarian laughs maniacally and we pan away. We come back to Derpus and Dio arguing about what to do (Instead of deciding what actually to do, since I doubt the battle will really last all that long against the prince if these rebels have their shit together).


Dio has no concept of fealty to a lord. You're a military man! This is why you exist! Damn southerners.


The two decide, much to Dio's chagrin, that they take off and help the prince. we fade out to the map screen and ready ourselves for level 2!

Final update before tomorrow; Who are our captains?

So, each squad has a captain, or a leader, who if they die, can no longer be given orders. If a unit dies, it is dead until it can be resurrected by a witch, or through an item use. Sometimes dead units will come back as undead units. This can be a good or a bad thing depending on how you're trying to play.

Anyways, an image of each squad and the people inside it;



Our captains;

Bernard, the knight


Hikaru, the Witch


Dio, the Gladiator


Barkley, the Berserker (And his army of pikemen)


Zora, the Cleric (And her Griffin, Iroth)


With that, those are our units. They will evolve over time; soldiers will change to either Fighters (the guys with the steel helmets) or Amazons (Archers) depending on some variable. I don't know exactly even after all this time. However, if every soldier in a cluster dies, they won't evolve, so it's imperative to not let the last soldier in a cluster die or you'll lose exp and new units. Current fighters and amazons will upgrade into leader units and beyond over time as they get better. Eventually Derpus' part should be made entirely of leader level characters. As characters level up, they can be given their own squads and even more men trained. Grand armies are possible.

Anyways. Volmus Mines are tomorrow! Any commentary would be appreciated. What would you guys like to see more of? I can do more videos, but they're slow to upload and limited to 30 seconds.

I AM SITTING HERE FLAILING
WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS THING BEFORE
OHWAIT, I KNOW WHY BUT STILL

*coughs* Er, sorry for the caps abuse. BUT SRSLY. Brings back my memories of Fire Emblem and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGH DO WANT.

Because of this title, I spent a non-negligible amount of time thinking about Brian Lumley's characters and, by extension, volume of work.

I'm pretty sure I hate you now.

CTHULHU'S BENEVOLENT COUSIN MAN WHAT

SHOW ME YOUR INSIDES Or like, you know. I honestly don't know what all the game offers so what you do show is awesome and alright with me~

Actually, videos would be much beloved actually because yes that is awesome and 30 seconds is fine, doesn't take too long of attention and stuffs.

Hurrah! This is one of those games I've always wanted to play, but never could/did. Glad to see the Ogre series getting some love!

Also, having difficulty taking Dio seriously -- the guy looks like a Vyce Bozeck wannabe who just couldn't resist growing a rat-tail.

They both have this really just disturbing braid. Dio's is at the back, Magnus/Derpus' is off to the side. It's just so weird. And if I remember correctly, it doesn't get taken care of for a while.

Small update; I ran a few rounds through training with Derpus, and now we have both a cleric and a Knight in that party. That's probably the quickest I've gotten anyone in a party to upgrade.

i'm still trying to get a Ninja. The first level's rewards are set up so that you have a full ninja outfit ready to go as soon as you get a character leveled for it. Ninjas use awesome Claws, like Shredder.

IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE WAR BRAIDS. EVERYONE HAS ONE~
(Really, even Hugo's sporting one it seems.)

Sorry sorry, I'll tone it done I promise. *ahem* So, Godeslas reminds me of Amanohashi. =S

How much save scumming do you plan to do? I know it's always frustrating to lose units but if you could manage to make due I think things would probably be more interesting in general.

I don't intend to ever restart if I lose a unit. I haven't ever gotten into end game content, but usually by the middle of the game I've only lost a unit or two. I'm not using any guides or anything either, so this is just a straight up playthrough. Only guide I'll crack out is a Gamefaqs to make certain any numbers I will be throwing out at you guys.

Awesome, definitely looking forward to this.

I freely admit I'm a horribly filthy save scummer when it comes to games like these. Heck, I can't even let my pokemanz die. But aye, it's not as fun if you score aces all the way across the board on LPs so briiing it my pretties~

But... but... pokeymans don't die, they just faint! Right?

RIGHT?

Son, you might want to sit down... Poor, poor raticate

So, I will be posting another update, but I just found this out; you can rename any unit in the game.

So, who wants to be what? If you want to be a named character, I'll give that character a little more attention as the game goes on, including crafting some sort of fiction narrative around said character in regards to the game. There's plenty of units! You'll even get to evolve into cooler things, and have a hand in that decision as well!

Hell, I'll volunteer~
*puts name on slip of paper and throws in hat*

I'm a sucker for adoption. Can I have one too? I promise to pet it and feed it and walk it every day.
Is there a list of the units somewhere?

Alright. That's it. With this new "Let's Play" from Demon G Sides, I can no longer simply lurk this forum any longer. I must post!

This game is AWESOME, and I eagerly await any and all updates to this LP. In case this hasn't already been answered by a previous poster, the class that your soldiers get promoted to depends on the gender of the squad leader. If your leader is male, the solider gets promoted to fighter; if female, then the soldier gets promoted to amazon. Hope this helps.

To take you up on your generous offer of re-naming your characters, if you ever get/use a fencer or swordmaster, it would be awesome if you could name one StupidNewbie or SNB or something like that.

P.S. I am sad that Derpus was not named Matthew or Angie. T_T

Level 3: Volmus Mines

Welcome back to Ogre Battly 64: Person of Lumly Character! In today's episode, we fight it out in the battle of Volmus Mines, where our good prince Yumil is currently being besieged by rebel forces!



We head off to Volmus Mines, and we head into the war room. We are given the map;



Hugo advises that we split up and attack down both branches of the road. I agree, but instead of going through the rough terrain in the north, we send the whole army down the right path, then split it up from there. This basically amounts to Derpus, Dio, Bernard, Hikaru, and Barkley all charging down into one city. It is a bloodbath. Barkley is assigned to clean-up, so his men can get easy experience. The other cities fall in time just as quickly as our units spread out around the map, Derpus and Dio taking the charge towards the mine directly.

We move towards the left hand path with Barkley and Hikaru. They come across a rebel army;


I'd be afraid of Barkley too.

Derpus and Dio continue their straight shot towards the mine. However, before we can even get close, we take the town of Ishro, and are treated to a cutscene, where we see Prince Yumil and his two bodyguards tied up, being watched over by an old man. Derpus busts in, and we watch him untie Yumil and his bodyguards.


There's nothing ominous about using a Dark Knight as a bodyguard,Yumil. Nothing at all.

We meet the prince and his two bodyguards, Rhade, who has a fire sword, and Jael, who's a big badass Dark Knight (Who is also a better person than Rhade). We quickly learn to hate Rhade, because Rhade is a huge dick.


Yes, so incompetent, us that just saved you, who was tied up. What a dick.

Even when he thanks us he's rude!



Yumil thanks us as well, and he almost stutters out a question a few times before Rhade interrupts. We're ordered to go hunt down the bad guys and put them to the sword for attacking Prince Yumil. We rush off to fulfill our orders, like good soldiers. We begin obliterating the remaining units around the map, until we stumble upon this adorable combination;



That's a dragon. Look at how cute that little toad of thing is. D'aww.

Anyways, we kill it and move on to the mine, where we me Qad, the leader of the rebel army here.


Negotiations broke down almost immediately.



Qad has a hellhound. It's a creature-type that will evolve into a 3-headed variant that is called, you guessed it, Cerberus. It is actually a pretty good beast to have under a Beast Tamer (Qad is the actual unit Beast Tamer, as opposed to the Berserker that I called beast tamer in the last post). Beast tamers are good when used in conjunction with beasts. There are multiple classes that have this effect with other types.



We kick Qad's ass in one turn. I should have realized right then that the front right swordsmen was already high enough level to upgrade, which is awesome. His name is Zerig. The back right archer also leveled up high enough to upgrade. She's now a cleric. Her name is Sapphire (A lot of the female names in this game are stripper names. Fantasy=strippers in Japan, apparently).


Qad's a little bitter about us kicking the shit out of him in one round of combat. He died before his puppy did.

We refuse to kill Qad, and have him brought before Rhade. We are treated to a victory fireworks display first, though.


This made all those lives lost worth it.

We bring our new bff Qad (Just now realizing, I think they might have been going for Chad with this name. God damned Fantasy names. I've been mentally calling him Kad all this time!) before Yumil and his bodyguards. Rhade is, believe it or not, still a dick.


"Hey, why you takin prisoners?" "Because maybe they might have info-" "SHUT UP LOL STUPID SOUTHERN ARMY."

Rhade then decides to step his game up, and instead of hearing out Qad, who has some valid complaints (Chief among them being; "Hey, please stop oppressing us. Please."). He goes over and punches Qad, knocking him back. He goes to draw his sword, but Derpus jumps in his way (Hey now wait a minute)


Wait a minute, what side am I on?

This ends for Derpus much how it ended for Qad. Derpus lies in a heap, and Qad is about to be struck down by Rhade when SUDDENLY, A CHALLENGER APPEARS! KA-CHING!


He showed up like a badass. Wish I had thought to take enough pics for a .gif of that. From now on out I will be more vigilant!


Ogre Battle's version of an "Ohhhhh shiiiiiit" moment.

A mysterious woman shows up and undoes Qad's bindings.



They abscond, as another swordsman appears. His entrance is even cooler, as he does this awesome dodge move on Jael. He then throws off his cloak, and he wears a headband. Something tells me we'll be seeing these two swordsmen again. The new knight yells for Saradin, and a wizard shows up, and drops some heavy magic on us. Fucks us up real good.


Yumil looks like he's had a few too many.

Rhade and Jael stand up and chase after the rebels. This leaves Derpus and Yumil alone for a tender moment, Derpus hoping that Yumil will bring up a fact that needs addressing *(But since you guys don't know about it yet it's hard for me to tel you what it is! You will find out soon tho, I promise. Suffice it to say, they have a history!)*


A many of few words, that Prince Yumil.

After this we are given very long cutscene. I will compile a .gif!



That got the gist of it. There wasn't anything else, but with the music it's definitely much more moving.

And so ends the prologue to Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly (Lumly) Character! I hope you enjoyed this brief sample. Soon, after I complete it, we shall get into the nitty gritty of Chapter 1!

For others wishing for a list of units that they may make a more educated choice on a unit/character to adopt, you can refer to the first part of this FAQ: http://www.gamefaqs.com/n64/198230-ogre-battle-64/faqs/9203

Not just limited to you regular swords and sorcery types, there are units like dragons, golems...even zombies and other undead. Enjoy!

Oh wow, and here I was thinking Qwad or Cad XD
Dangnabbit eh~

Meet Soli-Chan, a Witch!

Sure, what unit do you want? As for what we have currently;

• Derpus' Party:
  • Female Cleric
  • Female Amazon
  • Male Fighter
  • Male Knight
• Blackbern's Party:
  • Blackbern Male Knight
  • Male Fighter
  • Male Fighter
• Soli-Chan's Party:
  • Soli-Chan Female Witch *TAKEN*
  • Female Amazon
  • Female Amazon
• Dio's Party
  • Male Fighter
  • Male Fighter
  • Male Fighter
  • Female Amazon
• Barkley's Party
  • Barkley Male Berserker
  • Male Fighter
• Zora's Party
  • Zora Female Cleric
  • Iroth (Gryffin (If you've got a funny name, sure why not))

Right now these are our parties so far. I'll copy this list into the first post, and as spots are taken they'll be reflected there. Hopefully nota ll of them will, but hey if they do, that just makes this LP that much more interesting! So please don't hesitate to ask for anyone, unless already taken. If for some reason you don't want me writing about your character any more, you can drop your name off of them and they can be picked up again.

I will not be making any special attempts to save any of these characters. I'm playing the game how I play the game, which is for fun. You may die. I promise to make a .gif if you do, as well as some sort of memorial post, eulogizing your successes (or failures).

Awesome, that's what I figured, since Barkley got a fighter out of an upgrade. And I will definitely use Fencers, because I think the fencer character model is probably one of the coolest ever. In fact, I will probably use more fencers than I rightly should.

The hats! They are so cool.

Oh! Almost forgot.

I hit the image limit on that last post, and wanted to throw up the titlecard for Chapter 1. It's pretty awesome JRPG stuff.

You must name someone... not Ebly, well, unless you want to, but that's not a "must" thing. You must, however, name someone Harry.

Oh shit I forgot about this, we're allowed to name our Company/Battalion. The first great suggestion to come up gets to name it.

Edit: NVM, I got it :D Thanks Ebly!

Edit 2: And to entice anyone into Blackbern's spot, he has the alignment currently to be able to laterally change into a Ninja. So you know, that's pretty cool.

Oooo man, one of my favorite games ever! I'm watching this thread for sure.

The video had some graphical glitches and some really choppy music, is that because of fraps, or is this on all the time? This game has such a wonderful soundtrack I'd feel horrible having to hear it all chopped up like that all the time.

Ah man, Ninjas are awesome! I'd jump on that deal if possible, or if you don't mind having a guy named after a girl. I like how you're willing to rename characters after people here, that's pretty fun! (But I feel like a massive dork for jumping on the offer aaaaa).

This game also looks pretty interesting. The method of losing characters is pretty tough though; When I played the Fire Emblem with Ike, I couldn't bare to lose anyone.. Luckily I only restarted like twice. I permanently let two people die after two humongous multi-phase battles though.

Derpus is the best name ever.

The emulation isn't perfect; the black backgrounds are a direct result of that. However character animations and sound and everything is generally pretty spot on. Running with FRAPS is making it somewhat glitchy, but it's not that bad. Thea ctual youtube videos are horrendous, don't take them as representation of how well the game runs. i'm getting roughly 60 FPS pretty consistently.

I'm in as a name for sure! Don't care what I get placed as!

Sweet! well, I just finished another mission, and made some ofthe character changes. Unfortunately, ninja's can't lead units (which is bullshit), so i'm going to cycle Minardii the ninja into Derpus' unit, so that s/he/it gets to see some serious action. I've never gotten to 2nd tier ninja before.

The update will be up soon! uploading pictures as we speak.

Hahaha, awesome! Poor little Minardii the Ninja, forever the joke for yooouu.

I wonder why Ninjas can't lead units though? Too slippery for the chain of command?

Chapter 1


We find ourselves in General Godeslas' office. His face is still as funny as it was last time. We are given a stern talking to about responsibility and how now we are going to be the head of a Battalion! This is awesome for us as it means not many things other than the fact we get to have our own name soon!


There was probably other important things to remember, like our mission. But who cares about that, WE GET TO HAVE A NAME @o@

We leave the General after he tells us how good of a leader we are, albeit begrudgingly. We head off to Crenel Canyon!



In the war-room, we get to meet our third non-standard character, Leia.


She also has a stupid side braid. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Its no wonder their hats are so cool, all of their hairstyles are stupid.

Leia and Dio hit it off immediately, getting into an argument that devolves into a fight over who is more attractive.


She then gets right up in his face with a closed fist. Seriously. It was awesome.

Leia is a Blaze Knight, which is just a fancy way of saying "hero Valkyrie". Valk's are a new type of female unit. They wield spears and have wings on their heads. They are pretty badass, and when put on the back row, they get a magic attack, which makes them pretty awesome as frontline troops (That way if caught from behind they still do good damage).

We are then asked by Hugo to name our battalion. I asked above, but as I asked, Ebly posted about memorizing Harry, the most famous sheep in the whole world, who's brilliance even radiates beyond space and time to effect this world, as Harry's Horde is founded by Derpus Gallant, to help drive out the rebels!


This probably isn't what Hugo thought he was signing up for.

So, to rally the men behind this new moniker, Hugo drops some wisdom;


"We must be the sheep. Be one with the sheep. Have sheep-like qualities."

We finally get down to planning the battle after all the silliness of Valkyries and Sheep. We are assaulting Fort Tuatha, in Crenel Canyon. Rebels have recently taken up residence here, and we need to obliterate them. Pretty standard stuff.



We'll split our army in half, and send each half up the branches. Zora will stay behind as a guard at our base (This is important as sometimes the CPU will spawn units, depending on the mission at hand). The campaign goes exactly as you would expect a campaign lead by a man named Derpus to go;




On the right hand branch, we have Derpus, Soli-chan, and Leia. They utterly annihilate that town, and Soli is tasked with cleaning up the remnants, for some quick EXP (Leveling a witch sucks);


Soli-chan uses Paralyze Wave. It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!

You can visit any town you occupy, and sometimes this leads to background info or items or new character or whatnot. It's always worth checking them out, if nothing else. Here, Derpus goes around trying to spread some goodwill for the army, but only finds rebel sympathizers;


No army has ever been galvanized by someone named Fred.

On the left hand side, Bernard, Dio and Barkley crash into the enemies defenses. It is here we suffer one of our few defeats, as Bernard gets slammed by some magic users. We don't lose any units (besides dispensable soldiers), but the left hand branch definitely was a harder fought battle.



One of the berserkers there had a golem, which are huge hitting beasts that get 3 attacks in the front row, and have a huge health bar. You can find them in the wild, and puppeteers give them a fighting bonus.

We win, and things start going swimmingly. Dio is set upon by a very strong Wizard stack;



We get a cutscene about how upset they are at the oppression;


I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep us down!

Dio wipes the floor with the wizards, and Derpus gets attacked by a dragon!


This one is significantly less adorable than the toady one from before

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me (Seriously), Soli-Chan and her brigade of female fighters rushes forth into the maws of one of the defending valkyries. When I saw this battle start, I gulped loudly and wondered if maybe I'd lose my first player character within 24 hours of that person taking the mantle. This would not bode well for other named characters.


Also, they had an imp. I hate imps. So gross.

Soli-chan performed admirably, zapping the Valk out of commission with the paralyze beam while the soldiers hammered the valk, and the amazons stuck her full of arrows. The stack was leaderless after one round of combat, and Soli finished them up soon thereafter.

However, another mis-step, and Soli finds herself attacked from behind by the General of the rebel army, a Valkyrie with a full party;


No matter how often you call this guy Fred, I refuse to believe that's his name.

This was much worse than the last situation. Soli was on the front lines, and so were the amazons. Not good not good. On top of that, we find out some pretty interesting plot details;


I could not have picked a better character to have this conversation


Nope, war is the only answer to the fact that we're pissed you use us in your wars, duh


She gets hammered pretty hard but I manage to pull off a retreat interrupt before anyone dies. Soli retreat to Dio's castle to lick her wounds. Derpus is there to take up the fight. And I gotta say, what a fight it was. I called up Leia at one point to bring in more to bear, but that Valk blocked about 60% of my attacks, even Derpus', who is a critical attack monstrosity. However, she finally falls (As well as most of her party;


Encouraging words that you're giving to the person who just killed you. Just sayin'

That ends the level. We get 6 new replacement soldiers for doing so awesome, as well all my total loot coming out to being a full kit for a Dragon tamer and a new Valkyrie. Woo! We go to a cutscene;



Derpus is having some real trouble coming to terms with slaughtering all these disenfranchised peasants. OH WELL!

That ends the mission, and we're brought back out to the main map. I've done some tinkering, and this is what we have now, in our forces!



First post updated to reflect the new rosters. CLAIM YER CHARACTERS NOW TO GET IN ON THE NEXT CHAPTER! Remember, those lower level guys are actually better to be, as you get to choose your fate! Also, I need more leaders! Who wouldn't want to be one of my two berserkers?

And now, time to add some "CHOOSE YER OWN ADVENTURE!" to our Ogre Battling; Which of the two choices should we do first?

Go to Mylesia, or go to the Zenobian Border and root out them rebels?

Hmmmm, going to Mylesia seems good, to get the prince out of the way.. How about we head to Zenobian Border first?

I think they might be considered on the same level as Fighters and Amazons. They are certainly shorter than other Leader level units (There's a rudimentary height based heirarchy at work here, I feel like).

They can evolve into Master Ninjas (I think that is the name?) that gives them an awesome iron mask and lets them be leaders.