The Pumpkin Mandomizer is a fun little set of rules I’ve made for myself in order to make my Hard Mode True Ending playthrough more interesting.
Basically, while I am free to use any unit I want at any time during the playthrough, I’ve randomly selected the above team, and am required to bring them into the final battle.
I hope you enjoy coming along with me for the ride, and feel free to give strategy suggestions in the comments below!
Chapter 3: Those That Came Late
Roy is able to evade heavy casualties, and seizes the nearby castle. They liberate the prisoner inside, who is none other than King Zephiel of Bern’s younger sister, Guinevere! She’s a far way from home. Evidently, she’s looking for an audience with the Lycian Alliance, in an effort to find a peaceful end to the war before it continues any longer.
Roy decides to let her join his crew as they head over to Castle Araphen in order to rendezvous with Hector and join his crew. On the way, however, they receive a harrowing message: Lord Hector and his army got hosed.
Narcian and Brunnya of the 3 wyvern generals had bumrushed the castle, laying waste to everyone inside and capturing Hector. King Zephiel himself speaks with him about his goals to “deliver” the world, and he returns back to Bern with a mysterious “Maiden of Darkness.”
Brunnya returns to Bern as well, and Narcian sets off to Laus to collect a “souvenir” that has been prepared for him, leaving the castle in the hands of his subordinate, Slater.
Rushing to the castle, Roy finds it overtaken by Bern soldiers, and they run into the Thief, Chad, who offers to help them navigate the castle as revenge against Bern. Chad’s friend, Lugh, joins the fight as well.
We got Lugh!!!! Our future wielder of Forblaze showed up, and I played through the chapter slowly in order to let him catch up and start participating. I fed him some kills, and managed to get both Roy and Lugh up a couple levels, with Roy getting a levelup that literally bumped everything up other than res.
Other than that, this was a pretty bog-standard chapter; the only thing of note was that Slater needed Marcus to chip him down with an iron axe, because every other method of damage I had just wasn’t reliable enough to risk. I did let Lugh get the final hit off for one last level, stats shown below.
They battle their way to the throne, routing the enemy within, killing Slater, and seizing the castle. Hector is found in the dungeon, gravely injured. With his last dying breaths, he tells Roy of the brutal attack on the Lycian Alliance. Despite Hector being well renowned as a formidable general, Bern used the power of dragons they had resurrected to win the battle. He cedes control of the Lycian Army to Roy, and instructs him to head to Ostia to meet up with his daughter, Lilina. She can show him the way to a weapon that can be used to combat dragons.
Roy sets off to Ostia, unsure of what lies ahead…
Chapter 4: The Alliance’s Collapse (beginning)
On their way to Ostia, Roy and co. pass through the allied territory of Laus, but little do they know that its Marquess, Erik, has betrayed the “dusty old alliance” with Lycia for Bern. He also presents the captured Etrurian Noble, Clarine, to Narcian as a “souvenir.” Barf. Narcian returns to Bern, and Clarine escapes, however, through the help of Rutger, a mercenary in the employ of the House of Laus. Clarine meets up with Roy, and joins his army for protection. She also persuades Rutger
OH WAIT, I NEVER MANAGED TO GET THAT FAR.
Ok, ok, I’m calm now. But holy difficulty spike, Batman! These enemies are the same level as Alen and Lance, but better than them in almost every stat. My army takes more damage than I can heal, and they just. Keep. Coming. I managed to get a few good runs in there, but by far the most frustrating aspect of the chapter is everyone’s terrible accuracy.
I don’t know if it’s always been like this, but man! So many units just can’t get anything over 70% accuracy, it seems. Like, Ward and Lot can one-shot a cavalier with the poleax, but they’re sitting at 50% accuracy with it and face getting doubled if they miss. So it’s a coin flip whether they’ll give me an easy kill or become a complete liability on enemy phase. Here’s a screengrab of a typical poleaxe battle forecast, along with my blank face as I try to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do with that.
I’ve had to reset about 6 times, I think, and I had a really good run this last time–Rutger had just survived a round with Marcus (of course he’s a god dang ambush spawn, too), so I thought I was in the clear. However, the very last of the ambush spawns finds Lugh and sticks an arrow between his eyes.
Why was Lugh out there in danger? Well, there was an archer that should have been an easy kill, but multiple people missed to the point of not having enough grid spaces to get at him and kill him, so I had to send Lugh out there to take him out to avoid him taking Sheena down. And that’s with Merlinus serving as a diversion!
I feel like it would have been a lot better to train Marcus up to D in Axes so he could use the halberd to take everyone down. If anyone has any suggestions for strategy, let me know!
I looked up the chapter on the Wiki, and it seems that no one will attack Clarine. I didn’t realize that (I rescued her every time ASAP before any enemy could even think about targeting her), so it might be good to fly Chad down to the forts on the bottom to block those, hold the bridges on the river, and let Clarine come to me.
I originally intended to not write about a chapter I hadn’t finished, but I was at this one for like two hours. Along those lines, I’ll only post team graphics after each chapter is completely finished, because level-ups might happen and be reset. Happy to be getting into the meat of it, and excited to recruit Clarine!
I’ll surely beat it next week, but until then! See you next time.
Oh, and here’s the whole gameplay.