Off-site Screenshot test poster

Okay. I'm gonna drop the Didja Redo schtick because I don't want anyone to get confused about what's going on.

In vanilla Thracia 776, Chapter 8x is a big jump in difficulty mostly due to the boss, who was next to impossible to kill without a lucky critical, and you were restricted to a lower number of units than usual. But you got Dagda back, so it was all good.

In Super Thracia, not only is 8x VERY hard to unlock due to the insane throne bonus the boss of the previous chapter had, Super Thracia has made this chapter ten times the MONSTER it normally is. And remember, you cannot turn down sidequests in Thracia 776, so if you unlock 8x and save, you HAVE to beat it or restart the entire save file. Maybe that's why the map theme for this chapter is the fucking Game Over music. I'm not even joking.

And you need to REALLY be prepared for this. There are dozens of factors that make or break the chapter. Have you noticed the first big issue here yet? Here, let me zoom in on it and see if you notice.

Minimum 1 unit, maximum 1 unit, Leif force deployed. Yes. This is a Leif solo chapter...plus Orsin and Marty considering they rejoin here now. That also means if you skip this chapter, you lose Orsin and Marty. Bhuj is no longer locked to Orsin, but Marty is the only unit in the game that promotes to BERSERKER. Raise him to level 35 and use a Master Seal, and the Marty Party just got even crazier.

But really. Only allowing Leif to be deployed causes a MASSIVE number of problems by itself, and this is a chapter that, if unlocked, MUST be beaten. At least you could retreat from the Black Knight battle in FE9.

But at least you have three tiles of vision!

So here's a plot rundown from what I can gather: The bandits killed Dagda and Tanya, and then the Loptyr Sect came in and decided to zombify Halvan. Which means the three of them are permanently gone from the party. Bad news if you left any good items on them (I assume their items aren't deposited like Eyvel's were) and it also means any EXP on them is wasted. Just...ugh.

So Leif decides to rush in and help Marty and Orsin. By himself.

They still have their inventory from all the way back in chapter 3 so I hope you left them with good weapons, vulneraries and ESPECIALLY some Door Keys.

But then you would have to know WELL in advance what this chapter is going to be like to have done that, right?! Well, I have the Brave Axe and a Bhuj on these two, so they should be able to survive the enemies in their room - oh and by the way, Leif's in a separate room from these two.

And the chest in Leif's room has a VERY useful weapon for...oh I'm sorry, this is a HAMMER that Leif can't use and there aren't even any Armors in this stage, why is this a HAMMER? Make it an Armorslayer at least, hacker! I know you can change chest items, you changed nearly everything else!

I believe base level Marty and Orsin can survive the enemies in this room. The myrmidons don't move until they're attacked at least.

BARELY survivable.

Obligatory Marty Party screenshot.

Oh, a Knight Crest! That's SO going to help us.

In case you're wondering why I'm complaining about the chest items, I should point out that this map has many locked doors. That you need keys for. Now, if I could say bring a Thief, this would be no problem at all, but I'm forced to deploy ONLY Leif. That means only seven item slots for my weapons, vulneraries, and keys.

And if you were thinking Marty and Orsin could eventually make it to Leif, there are several issues with that plan - namely that your Axe users have to deal with a myrmidon - with a WIND SWORD I might add - in a ROM hack that raised the weapon triangle evasion bonus to 30. Your odds are VERY bad if you didn't feed these two lots of kills and every ring in the first four chapters.

Just past the first door, you've got lots of Archers as well as Bandits.

I'd have brought a Torch to see guys like this coming, but oops, I used up all mine in the Fog of War chapter with only 1 vision range, silly me!

So, let's recap. I've got limited inventory space with which to put keys and weapons. If Leif's stats aren't high enough, I could easily run out of weapons before the chapter's done. There's no storage tent or whatever on this map. But there is one way to get more weapons:

Have Leif capture enemies like this one, who is holding a Fire Sword. He also seems to have taken a Nihil manual from some chest.

So yeah. I hope Leif's Build is high enough for that, and that he's strong enough to carry out the capture! Fucking hell. You remember how I said I was following a Japanese walkthrough on Youtube? Their solution was to level up Leif in the previous chapter by leaving some enemies with Hand Axes alive and letting them attack Leif over and over. Every dodge is worth about 8 exp, right? So the guy takes Leif all the way to level THIRTY something. That is the only way I have ever seen anyone beat this without outright cheating.

Luckily for me, there's a GameFAQs guide to RAM hacking this game.

And you know something else? Door Keys in Thracia 776 have only 1 durability. The hacker did not think that maybe, just maybe, the player would be able to save some inventory space by, say, giving Door Keys a COUPLE MORE USES? I mean, Chest Keys have 20 durability! Why are Door Keys so fragile by comparison?! It doesn't make any sense at all!

Naturally, enemies have Door Keys as well, so better keep capturing!

I got lucky with this one. That and I brought a Killing Edge.

Now, the two halves of the map eventually merge at the boss room, but there's one last sucker punch waiting for you. Besides the boss, anyways.

See, there WAS a door right here. Marty and Orsin eventually come through here if they get past all the magic sword myrmidons.

HOWEVER.

The door that was here?

IT DOESN'T OPEN. You'll use a key on it, and then nothing. The door just stays there and you LOSE THE FUCKING KEY.

No, this door ACTUALLY opens at the same time as the BOSS DOOR. Which lead me to believe that this was some glitch (I do appear to be playing an earlier version based on discrepancies between my ROM and what the Serenes Wiki says) but no, this trick is pulled AGAIN in a later sidequest.

So no, teamwork does you no good in opening all the doors, because Leif has to reach the boss door first anyways.

So here's the boss. And the game must be teasing me with all this good shit I could capture, because with those stats, a capture is highly unlikely.

Oh, and see that red stone? That's a Fire Stone.

It's an infinite use vulnerary.

I'm not fucking kidding.

Here's what the other boxes have. Wrath manual and another beautiful Devil Axe. If you can get around the weapon's tendency to backfire, a 1 to 3 range Axe with this kind of power works great if you've got someone with the rank to use it.

If you're strong enough to make it to the boss with whatever Leif's stats are, he should be able to either nail Halvan with a crit from a Killing Edge, or use one of the magic swords you've hopefully captured. As for me?

I had to use up Leif's entire Light Brand.

Fuck this chapter. Never unlock 8x in this hack. Marty and Marty can go die and haunt Eboneezer Scrooge for all I care.

We're MARTY and MARTY, OOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

And now we return to semi-decent map design.