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Chapter 1: Escape!



What's the plan, sir?

The plan? Sit back and watch, slackers.



So, FE8 doesn't really have the world of sanity checks. As long as you're not doing something stupid to make the game crash, it's pretty willing to just kind of roll with whatever ends up happening. Take this, for example. Breguet's crit is supposed to be more than sufficient to kill the merc, but thanks to all the arbitrary bonuses, he can't do it. Even when his crit does 4x damage instead of 3x, he comes up short. Presumably the merc is scripted to die to ensure that even if something like this happens, we don't run into the issue of having Breguet and an NPC on the gate at once. In addition, if you check at the beginning of the chapter, Breguet starts with 22/25 HP.



So anyway, Chapter 1, which is really just part 2 of the Prologue. There's a fighter hiding down behind the terrain window, but otherwise there's nothing special here.



Before we get started though, I want to call attention to this particular soldier.



This guy is a rank and file soldier - a lowly grunt, the lowest of the low. The trash that even your weakest soldiers can effortlessly plow through. If these guys are anything to go by, this hack is ramping things up, and fast.



Oh. As a contrast to O'Neill who received a ridiculous boost across the board, Breguet has received absolutely nothing. The "why" requires a bit of a technical explanation, so you can skip this if you really don't care (but it's the first of many decisions that show just how lazy our hacker was):

Essentially, every unit is composed of three things: Their class base stats, their personal modifiers, and their growths. Class bases are exactly that - every unit in that class starts from those bases. For the sake of argument, we'll look at a male knight: 17 HP/5 Str/2 Skl/0 Spd/9 Def/0 Res/13 Con. From there, we add the unit's personal modifiers. If our hypothetical knight's bonuses are +1 across the board, we'd be looking at a L1 Knight with stats of 18 HP/6 Str/3 Skl/1 Spd/1 Luck/10 Def/1 Res/14 Con. If he were to appear in a later chapter (where he might be, say, L10), then the game auto-levels him according to his growths. A male knight's growths are 80/40/30/15/25/28/20, so our average L10 Knight will have 24.2 HP, 9.6 Str, 5.7 Skl, 2.35 Spd, 3.25 Luck, 12.52 Def, and 2.8 Res. He might be blessed (or cursed) in a few categories, but we can probably expect him to be somewhere around those numbers.

You might have noticed last chapter that Seth, O'Neill, etc. all got a +4 bonus across the board. Rather than increasing the personal modifiers, what he actually did was increase the class bases. This causes them to be applied to every single member of that class, friend or foe. So in the future, every single fighter we fight or recruit will have a +4 to everything. Knights...didn't get a stat boost. Technically, this method does make things harder - my units are going to hit their caps sooner, and the AI will actually have a chance at hitting some of their own while I'm stuck at the 20-point caps before promotion. Until we reach that point though, everything will be business as usual.



Seth moves over to the fortress, while Eirika stays just out of the soldier's range. It's almost sad to say, but barring a crit, that's a fight she would lose, and badly.

The following conversation is presented in its entirety to demonstrate why I am not touching the plot at all. I trust you'll understand.



Aye, we have. Her Highness Princess Tana should be inside the castle.

But look - the countryside is crawling with Grado soldiers! Where's the castle guard! Has Mulan fallen? Are we too late?

Too tough to say from here. Princess Tana's in no danger if they want her as a bargaining tool. We men of the Eastern Watch will see her to safety.

Yes...Yes, of course. We mustn't give up. We must move. We must retake the castle. Then, we ride forth to Princess Eirika's aid.

I've stronger armor then you do. I'll take the lead. Watch my back.



Let's meet our new friends.



Lyn Franz is a myrmidon who, with the exception of luck, is better than Eirika in literally every way. Yes, we're in Chapter fucking 1 and our lord has been obsoleted. She also comes with a Shamshir, which is the FE8 equivalent of the Wo Dao from FE6/7.

Just to really drive that one home, we have been given a unit that obsoletes our lord in almost literally every way and comes with a Killing Edge+ in Chapter 1.



Pent Gilliam is our first mage, and mainly serves to make Breguet even more of a joke than he already was. He's a solid, if somewhat boring unit, but this exchange has huge ramifications in terms of game balance that I'll go into at the end of the update.



Eirika advances forward on the southern front, while Pent and Lyn deal with our soldier friend in the north.



On the fourth turn, a trio of enemies appears from behind as our introduction to enemy reinforcements. Seth remains behind and hops in the forest near the houses to deal with them.



This is not a particularly safe formation, and I'm not entirely sure why I went through with it. Pent is probably dead if they all go after him, but I feel like I can trust the AI to not think that far ahead.



Sure enough, the soldier that Pent softened up goes after Eirika and gets murdered for his trouble.



The other two are happy to go after Pent and get a thunderbolt to the face.



Pent offs the soldier and Lyn kills the fighter, leaving us with just Breguet.



See, you're really not supposed to have a mage at this point. Breguet is supposed to teach you about effective damage, but even with a simple Fire tome, we can kill him off without even trying.



But in the end, I give him to Eirika. If she's going to be dragged on every mission, I might as well keep her from becoming total dead weight.



Big words from a man who gets completely embarassed by a run of the mill soldier.



Eirika just barely squeaks out a second level as we seize the castle and finish up the chapter. Since nothing of interest happens at Castle Frelia, meet Vanessa:



And Moulder:



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Level 1 Myrmidon
Swords - D, Affinity - Light
Equipment - Shamshir, Vulnerary x2

HP: 27 (80%)
Strength: 11 (40%)
Skill: 16 (40%)
Speed: 16 (50%)
Luck: 2 (40%)
Defense: 9 (25%)
Resistance: 9 (20%)
Con: 5

Before I get into the unit breakdown for Lyn, I should explain the growths. They probably don't look very...myrmidon-y. They're not - those are actually Franz's growths. Simply put, whenever a unit gets replaced, they keep their old growths regardless of how fitting they are. This has hilarious implications in a number of instances throughout the game.

So anyway, replacing Franz is Lyn, the first lord from FE7. If not for her sheer stats and the fact that she comes with a Shamshir, this would be a trade down in many ways. If Franz was still around, he'd be somewhere in the realm of 24/11/9/11/2/10/5, plus his status as a cavalier would give him a lot of utility to somewhat make up for the lower stats. Still, Lyn is a pretty damn good myrm. 11 Str is just a little bit ridiculous for a L1 myrm, and the rest of her stats are equal or better to Eirika in literally every way except for Luck.



Level 4 Mage
Anima - D, Affinity - Thunder
Equipment - Fire, Thunder

HP: 28 (90%)
Magic: 9 (45%)
Skill: 10 (35%)
Speed: 10 (30%)
Luck: 3 (30%)
Defense: 7 (55%)
Resistance: 10 (20%)
Con: 7

Pent is a very interesting replacement case, because it completely changes the game's dynamic for the first third of the game or so. If you've noticed, the hack hasn't actually added enemies, only strengthened the ones that are already there. This is important, because Fire Emblem (and all strategy games, really) is essentially a puzzle: here are the enemies/NPCs/whatever, use whatever units you have available to you to complete the objective in the best way you can. And this is good design! You shouldn't get a rescue mission requiring the use of a pegasus knight until you actually have a pegasus knight. By trading Gilliam for Pent, we've given up our "tank" unit in exchange for a mage, meaning that we now lack a tool the game expects us to have (and conversely, have one the game doesn't expect us to for another couple chapters). FE8 isn't exactly heavy on tanky units in the first place, and giving up one the game expects you to have from the beginning of the game means we have to get a lot more creative with defensive formations. It'll be an interesting challenge, if nothing else.



Level 3 Priest
Staves - C, Affinity - Anima
Equipment - Heal Staff, Vulnerary

HP: 20 (+4) (70%)
Magic: 4 (+4) (40%)
Skill: 6 (+4) (50%)
Speed: 9 (+4) (40%)
Luck: 1 (20%)
Defense: 2 (+4) (25%)
Resistance: 5 (+4) (25%)
Con: 9

Replacing everyone's favorite FE8 healer is Erk. In what will be a very rare display of game balance before authenticity, Erk remains a priest rather than his original class of mage. And thank god for that, because otherwise we'd have another mage and a troubadour, leaving us lacking a knight and a flyer. All things considered though, Erk actually gains quite a bit by taking over Moulder's spot. His magic might not blow you away, but the big prize is a ton of Con to make use of after promotion. Considering that priests can promote to sages, Erk can not only regain his correct class, but also take advantage of all the crazy buffs it's been given.



Level 1 Pegasus Knight
Lances - D, Affinity - Anima
Equipment - Slim Lance, Javelin, Vulnerary

HP: 17 (+5) (50%)
Strength: 5 (+4) (35%)
Skill: 7 (+4) (55%)
Speed: 11 (+4) (60%)
Luck: 4 (50%)
Defense: 6 (+4) (20%)
Resistance: 5 (+4) (30%)
Con: 5

Priscilla replaces Vanessa, trading her staves and pony for a flying horse. This is a replacement that really confuses me, because Priscilla really has absolutely nothing to do with being a peg knight. Erk at least was a magic user and can promote into his "proper" class, and it's not like there was a shortage of peg knights to import from FE7 if you really had to replace Vanessa. Still, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it would be really nice if they would give out some goddamn Con to my female units instead of +17 Speed.