I just finished part 1 and there’s things I really like about this hack. The way promotional items work, the different units and their strengths/weaknesses, and the difficulty. But upon starting part 2 I just feel completely fleeced. I didn’t promote anyone in part 1 (I looked at the promotions but reset) because it never got difficult enough to, but I kept the promotional items and a bunch of the loot on the characters.
Come to part 2 I find out I maintain access to old convoy items even though that seems pretty illogical considering none of the characters are even the same. I just feel arbitrarily punished for not sending everything to the convoy.
Maybe if there was a good reason for all of this it would feel better, but overall the story is definitely the weak point. It went from a really fun premise of being chased by a scary cow skull to neutralizing the compelling villain and recruiting him to most of the plot points happening in parentheses thought bubbles and none of it really making much sense.
The convoy thing is the main gripe, like so much of the difficulty of the rest of the game is going to be determined solely by what items i chose to send to my convey in that one chapter.
But overall, I really enjoy the gameplay, just not a very well executed route split.
Edit: The more I think about it the gameplay of the first part was more just accidentally good. Getting to all of the chests and pushing the maps was perfectly balanced for nonpromoted units, it felt like a real challenge without being frustrating or relying on luck. But if I had promoted even 1 unit I’m pretty sure they would’ve just solod the map. There were so many small things too, like the archer being 1 shot by everything but also 1 shotting everything. The gargoyle phantoms, the bowbreaker. So many of the weapons and units were always just perfectly suited for quickly clearing the maps.
Now I played one more chapter and now that I get one of my units back as a different class with a different inventory (was never a thief before so I’m not sure why its not just a new character). Anyway, I kind of realize most of my loot is just permanently lost which really isn’t cool, that guy had most of my good swords and a master seal! I guess they are just swallowed by the void. I’m also thinking the lord might be the monk I never used from the first part but I’m not 100% sure. If so, its funny the first unit I instinctively bench is now the most important character that I should’ve been training.