Honestly, 1-4 is just… it’s a terrible chapter. (Seperated from previous post as that was a reply to someone else).
Spoilers for 1-4
This is not okay for several reasons.
He’s level 20 while your units at most are maybenin the high single digits/early tens. Most of your units also have trouble damaging him, save for the Jeigan.
Oh, and they move when they’re in range, they have 1-2 range, and they can’t really be doubled effectively because Barricade means they take half damage from the second hit.
And that personal skill-
ABSOLUTELY not okay, especially not when there’s no Restore staffs available. Silence and poison are one thing, but if it inflicts Berserk, Sleep, or heaven forbid, Stone?
Forget it. Reset if that happwns or load last savestate. No battle this early in the game should have RNG like this. (Especially since this boss can get a decent hit rate on and even double certain units).
This boss is also stupidly tanky- like “the Jeigan cannot one round them” tanky; in no small part due to Barricade and that ridiculous amount of HP.
This is also on top of the map being an extremely brutal grind for this early in the game- you have no defensive terrain to work with, a lot of enemies that can and will fuck you up if you got statscrewed, or else overwhelm you and you dont exactly have bodies to spare (about seven units in all total).
The map is also stupidly large too- as even though the Green units can clear the top half, it’s still not good design in my book.
Especially not that room with the Chest in it- I gave up on it because I had to focus everything on handling the tide of enemies from the south to avoid getting flanked; and the worst part is, it’s locked behind a door.
And no enemy drops a door key in the maps prior; you only get a door key in this chapter.
And those enemies that drop it spawn in the south; while the chest room is to the north.
So to get the chest before the thief; even though you have a generous amount of time, you need to essentially bumrush a bunch of enemies you can’t afford to, then go in the opposite direction to try and get there in time.
Oh and in the meantime avoid getting your ass kicked by the constant tide of reinforcements that show up that includes Knights (whose Barricade makes them monsters to deal with), Wyvern Riders, Shamans (who can come with either Dark or Anima magic), Monks, Mercenaries, and probably others I’m forgetting about.
You also don’t get Armory access in the prep screen (although this happens in prior chapters as well)- so if you forgot to buy more weapons last chapter, well…
Hope you have enough uses on what you have to deal with a staggering amount of foes; or else prepare to replay the last chapter again.
This was not a fun chapter, needless to say.
And without the allied green units, this would have actually been even worse.
A lot of this I realize needs images to contextualize this; but I’m on data rn and this needs a lot of images to properly convey, so… yeah.
The map flow of this chapter is terrible as well and unintuitive IMO- usually for rout maps; you’re not really supposed to let green units take the lead… but you have to here.
The design of this map also feels more like a Defend and/or Survive chapter moreso than a Rout; which also screws with, I think, the flow of it. Especially with all the other stuff put together-
Next to no offensive terrain in the south side to really hunker down on, a chest, a boss that moves, and the risk of being flanked on three sides with a lack of chokepoints to really hold back the foes with just does not make for a fun experience.
This feels like Maniac Mode Clash- a giant dump of enemies in essentially a wide open field where there’s not so much strategy as it is just luck and hoping to god that you can make enough of a dent fast enough to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Also: no earlygame boss should require the Jeigan to take down in a realistic amount of time. Boss kills are importsnt sources of exp for your lesser units in the earlygame- and while leveling your Jeigan is important in some games (including this one), it shouldn’t be catered to like this.
TL;DR: This map’s flow is awful because of how large it is, the sheer enemy density, the lack of tools you have to work with, and the boss is a pain no matter how you look at it.
I have other issues with this hack so far (currently on I believe 1-9), but I’ll cover them later.
