While this technically doesn’t count as a campaign, Embrace of the Fog does have a story so it kind of counts? It’s a really fun hack with a lot of really fun and unique units, any of whom would likely warrant a whole effortpost. However, I wanted to shine a special spotlight on one of my personal favorites to use: Belle.
At first, she’s a bit unassuming. She’s got low Strength, Magic, and Defense, but pretty good Speed and Skill alongside a decent Resistance stat. She seems like the archetypical fast-but-doesn’t-do-much damage archetype that can sorta counter mages, but she also doesn’t come with any standard weapons (I’ll get into that) and her kit seems to lean on the supportive side. The many changes EotF makes to the FE formula, though, give her the potential to be a jack of all trades, master of almost everything. She’s got a lot of mechanics, but they all mesh together to form an extremely fun character to use that rewards you for taking the time to learn how to use her properly and any investment you put into her.
For a bit of important context for those who haven’t played the hack, EotF is a rouguelite take on the traditional FE formula that’s built on Lex Talionis, and there are three relevant changes for why Belle works so well. The first of which is that units are obtained via gacha, so any unit can be obtained at any point during a given run, including being deployed at the beginning of a run as one of your starting characters. This means that Belle (and any other unit) does not have a specified join time, and because she can be chosen as a starting character once you get her for the first time, she technically has perfect availability if the player picks her. Also, due to her utility, she can be useful regardless of when you get her because she doesn’t require a lot of investment to do well. The second is that HP does not recover naturally between maps, which will be relevant later, and finally, the game introduces a new weapon type: guns.
Guns are a type of weapon that can be used by any unit and do not have an associated weapon rank. They all have a cooldown (usually only being able to be used once every other turn turn) but there’s at least one method that I know of to reduce this. They also do true damage, but they don’t scale with Strength or Magic. Whatever their might is is how much damage they deal. However, they do work with Speed when it comes to doubling and the other stats when it comes to hit and crit rate. They fit solidly as a decent option to deal with enemies with high defense or resistance (and are pretty strong in the early game where enemy HP isn’t that high), but they admittedly fall off a little due to their inability to scale into the late game to match higher enemy HP thresholds. They can also work as a way to give certain units access to 1-2 range, since typically weapons are either only 1 range or only 2 range, similar to FEH. 1-2 range is extremely uncommon in EotF, so this is one of the only methods to get access to it consistently.
The reason I go into all of this is because Belle is a character built around guns. It’s the only weapon type she can use before she promotes (as she doesn’t have any standard weapon ranks before then), she starts with one, and she’s got two skills that revolve around them (one of them requiring you to upgrade her in the hub world). She’s also got 2 more skills that give her a lot of utility, which I’ll get into later.
Her first skill is Quickdraw, which allows her to use guns without using up her turn.
This is extremely good for burst damage, especially early on, as whenever she has a gun that’s off cooldown, she can use it for free, which can allow her to use several in one turn. This lets you potentially kill multiple enemies in one turn or do a significant amount of damage to a single target. She’s also minmaxed to use them, since her strength and magic are low but guns ignore those stats anyway so she doesn’t need them in the first place. Additionally, the fact that they do true damage allows her to use her high Spd to double most enemies and do flat damage to them, and her ability to use more than one allows her to do significant amounts of damage to any target, regardless of their Def and Res. She struggles a bit with high HP bosses, but she’s excellent for dealing with lower HP enemies, especially if you’re able to reduce the cooldown of her guns during your run (although this is definitely not required for her to perform well). You do need to pick up more guns for her, as she only starts with one (or two, if she’s upgraded), but it’s not a super high investment and you’re likely to find several of them over the course of a run. It is favoritism, but you also don’t get THAT many units in a single run of EotF, so if you have her you’re probably investing in her at least a little, and she doesn’t need that much love in order to pop off (especially compared to a few other units in the game). Additionally, once she promotes, she gets access to knives, which gives her a regular damaging option that she can use to do even more damage alongside her guns (and let her boost her guns’ damage with the debuffs knives can inflict, although it’s a bit awkward because you usually have to use the guns first).
The second skill is a lot simpler, it’s something you have to unlock, but it allows you to take one of her guns and make it into an ability for her.
What this does in practice is give her an extra inventory spot specifically for a gun of your choice. This is useful, as a unit’s inventory is split. Instead of 5 slots for whatever you want, units have 3 spots for weapons/active items, and 2 for passive accessories. This means that instead of 3 guns, she can potentially have up to 4, which further boosts her damage potential. Alternatively, this also frees up a slot for an active item, as several of them are very good and she also has synergy with them.
This synergy is her third skill: Bombmaker.
Basically, she can use the skill once per map as an action, which gives her a component. When she uses the skill with 3 components, she gives the player a consumable, giving the player 3 random options to choose from (the pool seems to be limited to attack items though, healing items like vulneraries will not show up). In practice, this skill’s effect is that every 4 maps, she gives you one consumable. These are typically very utility-focused, inflicting debuffs on enemies. This combines with her starting accessory: the Potion Belt.
It basically takes any consumable items a unit has at the end of the map and puts it into the belt, essentially putting any consumables in a single accessory slot rather than taking up spots where weapons could go. Granted, it’ll exist in those spots before the end of the map, but afterwards it’s all in a single slot, which allows Belle to slowly stockpile items through Bombmaker until they start becoming necessary in the mid/late game. Additionally, because guns are a free action for Belle, she can attack and use items in a single turn, which allows her to be both a damage dealer and a utility unit, especially since these items typically have more than one durability. She can do things like reduce enemy accuracy and increase the damage they take in combat, which is super helpful for the whole team.
Her final skill is probably my favorite: Trap Master.
She can use it twice a map, and each use creates two mines on the field, which will stop and damage any unit that steps on them. This includes allies, but it shows the location of where you placed them so you don’t have to remember, and typically you can put it in spots that won’t inconvenience you but will hurt enemies. This can be extremely useful, as one of the big quirks of EotF is that you do not automatically heal after combat. You have to either find a specific spot to heal or use the (very limited durability) healing items/staves. This makes enemy phase fairly dangerous, and sometimes the game forces you to put yourself in a position where you have to take multiple attacks at once during enemy phase. Belle can significantly reduce the danger of this, as enemies who step on her traps can’t attack, so she can allow your squishier units to safely bait enemies or protect yourself from reinforcements that catch you off guard. It’s pretty versatile and likely her most useful skill, and it’s one of the main reasons I really like using her. Additionally, while it does take an action, guns are free actions for her thanks to her first skill, so she’s able to attack AND defend at the same time.
In essence, thanks to her extremely varied skillset, Belle can essentially do it all. She’s definitely not a combat god, but she’s able to do pretty much anything you need her to with minimal investment. Even if you don’t invest into her skill with guns, she’s almost always useful at any point in a run due to her ability to make enemy phase significantly safer and her varied utility. She can do heavy burst damage to basically any enemy, attack multiple enemies in one turn, provide various useful items for free, and even protect your squishier units on enemy phase. There’s no situation where she’s not at least somewhat useful, and she does a lot more than just combat. Overall, she’s a great unit that always has a place on any team. She’s definitely not the strongest unit for combat, but she’s extremely good at it with enough investment and her other utility makes her useful even without investment and more than makes up for her lack of late-game scaling. Her damage isn’t always high, but it’s also extremely consistent, which makes her extremely good at dealing chip damage to tanky enemies if she doesn’t outright kill them, and she’s also capable of attacking multiple enemies in one turn which isn’t super common. She’s definitely complex but she returns the effort you put into learning how to use her in spades.
