I think that woman’s death equals game over because we chose the “we must save her” option, voluntarily handicapping ourselves. I don’t know if the choice has any impact on the story down the road, but it’s the sort of “good” choice that I tend to make one RPGs.
Good to know about Boon of Swiftness! I’m sure that’ll be very handy.
I’m hoping to get in some more time with this after finishing up Trails. So very close...
I did the Necromancer fight yesterday, was pretty rough, after a while I ended up going kamakazi and just running up the hill to kill the boss as I couldn't keep up with skeletons.
I had some free time over the long weekend, and I've cleared chapter 2. I'll put some general thoughts and notes down, then story specific stuff in spoilers.
I did the Necromancer fight yesterday, was pretty rough, after a while I ended up going kamakazi and just running up the hill to kill the boss as I couldn't keep up with skeletons.
I've done something similar many times now. Sometimes its easier to clear out all the enemies to clear out the archers and other annoyances before focusing on the boss, and sometimes there just isn't time.
A few notes:
1. Archers are really good. You should always have a few of them around, and make sure they all know Tremendous Shot, which boost the damage they do for 40 TP. When you put all that together, I can sometimes oneshot enemy mages and archers.
2. Another fun thing about archers: assuming you have even minor high ground, you can shoot longer than the range says you can. I've stretched a shot out an extra square past what it said I could do and hit people anyway.
3. Teach all of your primary attackers Anatomy, which does extra damage to humans which are the main enemies I've fought.
4. Starting in Ch.2 you can start upgrading weapons. It does seem to make a significant difference stat wise, but the process to do so is tedious. It would me much better if you could refine ore or wood in bulk. And if you can and I haven't seen it, please tell me before I get any farther. Also, upgrading a weapon increased the level you have to be to use it. So I've bought new level 10 weapons for my level 10 characters, and then upgraded the weapon. Boom, now a level 11 weapon, and I can't use it until I level again.
5. Sometimes the upgrading can fail, and you lose the weapon/armor and all the parts used to try to upgrade it. I'm not sure why they thought this was a good mechanic.
6. Rune Fencers seems to be a support class, since they can learn the spells that give people buffs to certain elements, and can learn quicken. Still, not much of this has been useful.
Now for story stuff
Having gone down the Law route, the game really seemed to want me to think I was the bad guy of this story. The Walister clan found out that we were responsible for the massacre at the end of Ch.1 in record time, and we even had to fight our own since they viewed us a traitor. The New Walister Alliance or whatever it was called seemed like it would actually be the good guys, with Vyce leading it. And then we had to fight a bunch of clerics in a fight who could do little to oppose us, and at every turn the game wanted us to know how noble or valorous our enemies were.
The Count kept getting worse as expected, but I honestly expected his nonsense to drag on for another chapter. That Leonar decided to turn on him after wasn't a surprise after the way he was being treated and the Duke's ideas, but again I expected him to take a bit longer to do it. That he then turned around to betray us was odd, and I don't know that I buy his reasoning of killing Denam in order to unite the Resistance and the Alliance. We did get a cool 1v1 fight kind of like in FFT out of it (I know it wasn't really 1v1, but the AI guests weren't doing much besides talking).
So now the Walister are united and Vyce is back in the fold, but a lot of the forgiveness seems too easy. I expect the upcoming war against Galgastani (and probably another against the Dark Knights in Ch. 4 if I had to guess) will give the Walister something to hold together for, but the alliance seems like it is going to be held together with duct tape and some string. And I fully expect things to continue to go bad.
Actually, here's an off the wall prediction. Maybe the Walister and the Galgastani band together to fight off the Dark Knights in the future. The game is called Let Us Cling Together, after all.
1. Archers are really good. You should always have a few of them around, and make sure they all know Tremendous Shot, which boost the damage they do for 40 TP. When you put all that together, I can sometimes oneshot enemy mages and archers.
2. Another fun thing about archers: assuming you have even minor high ground, you can shoot longer than the range says you can. I've stretched a shot out an extra square past what it said I could do and hit people anyway.
I've just stuck with the initial archer unit you recruit, Sara. I've had Canopus do some sniping/support with alchemy items, but maybe I should change him to archer so he can use a 2-handed bow. Sometimes his damage is a bit ineffective.
3. Teach all of your primary attackers Anatomy, which does extra damage to humans which are the main enemies I've fought.
I should be more thorough about this, I think 3 or 4 of mine have anatomy.
4. Starting in Ch.2 you can start upgrading weapons. It does seem to make a significant difference stat wise, but the process to do so is tedious. It would me much better if you could refine ore or wood in bulk. And if you can and I haven't seen it, please tell me before I get any farther. Also, upgrading a weapon increased the level you have to be to use it. So I've bought new level 10 weapons for my level 10 characters, and then upgraded the weapon. Boom, now a level 11 weapon, and I can't use it until I level again.
5. Sometimes the upgrading can fail, and you lose the weapon/armor and all the parts used to try to upgrade it. I'm not sure why they thought this was a good mechanic.
I've spent a lot of time upgrading and the process is annoyingly time consuming. At least the upgraded stuff is still viable after newer equipment becomes available. And you get to feel overpowered for a while. As far as failing, I always just save and reload when crafting the final item. I don't usually bother for crafting the reagents.
6. Rune Fencers seems to be a support class, since they can learn the spells that give people buffs to certain elements, and can learn quicken. Still, not much of this has been useful.
I finally switched my Rune Fencer to Ninja but now back at lv 1 of course.
Now for story stuff
Spoiler:Having gone down the Law route, the game really seemed to want me to think I was the bad guy of this story. The Walister clan found out that we were responsible for the massacre at the end of Ch.1 in record time, and we even had to fight our own since they viewed us a traitor. The New Walister Alliance or whatever it was called seemed like it would actually be the good guys, with Vyce leading it. And then we had to fight a bunch of clerics in a fight who could do little to oppose us, and at every turn the game wanted us to know how noble or valorous our enemies were.
The Count kept getting worse as expected, but I honestly expected his nonsense to drag on for another chapter. That Leonar decided to turn on him after wasn't a surprise after the way he was being treated and the Duke's ideas, but again I expected him to take a bit longer to do it. That he then turned around to betray us was odd, and I don't know that I buy his reasoning of killing Denam in order to unite the Resistance and the Alliance. We did get a cool 1v1 fight kind of like in FFT out of it (I know it wasn't really 1v1, but the AI guests weren't doing much besides talking).
So now the Walister are united and Vyce is back in the fold, but a lot of the forgiveness seems too easy. I expect the upcoming war against Galgastani (and probably another against the Dark Knights in Ch. 4 if I had to guess) will give the Walister something to hold together for, but the alliance seems like it is going to be held together with duct tape and some string. And I fully expect things to continue to go bad.
Actually, here's an off the wall prediction. Maybe the Walister and the Galgastani band together to fight off the Dark Knights in the future. The game is called Let Us Cling Together, after all.
I didn't quite get the sense you are supposed to be evil. I was confused by Vyce's motivations but eventually you find out that his priority is reshaping the class system rather than just revenge on the Dark Knights. So, he was never going to be a big supporter of the Duke, at least as far as the Law branch plays out. I remember that fight with the clerics who were protecting that big brute. Anyway, after the battle played out, I reviewed his profile and saw that he is a pretty nasty piece of work. So, I reloaded, cut off his escape route and killed him. Unfortunately, the clerics fought to the death after that, oh well.
The Leonar betrayal caught me by surprise, again, as this is the second time playing but I don't remember all the details it seems. I feel like the end result makes sense, but, really, he should know he is not leadership material and should have just jumped on your sword instead of fighting out a legitimate 1on1 battle. Considering how the Duke's forces were depleted, there was no way Leonar was going to reunite all the Wallister elements.
Just general stuff as I'm playing through. At the start of a battle, have any adjacent units to your clerics use magic leafs on them (preferably magic leaf 2 for 75 MP as long as you have Alchemy I skill equipped). Your melee units won't be able to hit the enemy yet anyway so this is a good use for their action. Once your Cleric class is level 10, make sure they learn Boon of Swiftness. It's a pricey spell, 30MP or so, but can give you the edge, especially early in battle. Use your first 2-3 rounds where you don't need healing and have your clerics cast Boon of Swiftness on your 3-4 main damage dealers.
Your enemies can drop tarot cards instead of loots. Picking these up during the battle can boost your unit's stats as follows:
https://tacticsogre.fandom.com/wiki/...
1.The Magician - INT up
2.The High Priestess - MND up
3.The Empress - MP up
4.The Emperor - HP up
5.The Hierophant - MND up
6.The Lovers - Loyalty up/down
7.The Chariot - STR up
8.Justice - AVD up
9.The Hermit - INT up
10.Wheel of Fortune - AVD up
11.Strength - STR up
12.The Hanged Man - VIT up
13.Death - LUK up/down
14.Temperance - RES up
15.The Devil - LUK up/down
16.The Tower - VIT up
17.The Star - DEX up
18.The Moon - AGI up
19.The Sun - AGI up
20.Judgment - DEX up
21.The World - RES up
22.The Fool - Loyalty up/down
I would aim to have just your core units pick up these cards as much as possible (I usually let Denam have most of them). My understanding is that if you discard the unit later, the effort of buffing their stats would be somewhat wasted. Anyway, again, using Boon of Swiftness makes it a bit less painless having him zip around the battlefield scooping up all the cards.
I've just stuck with the initial archer unit you recruit, Sara. I've had Canopus do some sniping/support with alchemy items, but maybe I should change him to archer so he can use a 2-handed bow. Sometimes his damage is a bit ineffective.
I picked up a second archer somewhere, plus Canopus acted as a hybrid third archer. But I was rolling with upgraded longbows with Anatomy, the increase physical attack skill, plus Trajectory so I can see opportunities to hit enemies outside of my normal range. They did some serious work for me. I'm strongly considering flipping Canopus over to a full time archer as well so he can use the longbow.
That said, I really haven't tampered with my classes much so far. Denam has gone from warrior to berserker and then ninja, and I flipped my generic cleric over to a mage, since Donnalto was doing just fine as a cleric and I wanted more firepower. I'm seriously considering switching my fighter or Xapan over to a knight so I have two of them to soak up damage, and then get more ranged units and let them do the serious lifting.
Also, I think I need to mix up damage types too. It seemed like the only weapons that did worthwhile damage to some of the bigger enemies is the Crushing weapons like Hammers. But my knight was the only one that had a crushing-type weapon, so several fights were serious grind-it-out encounters.
More story discussion in spoiler.
Mr GT Chris wrote:I didn't quite get the sense you are supposed to be evil. I was confused by Vyce's motivations but eventually you find out that his priority is reshaping the class system rather than just revenge on the Dark Knights. So, he was never going to be a big supporter of the Duke, at least as far as the Law branch plays out. I remember that fight with the clerics who were protecting that big brute. Anyway, after the battle played out, I reviewed his profile and saw that he is a pretty nasty piece of work. So, I reloaded, cut off his escape route and killed him. Unfortunately, the clerics fought to the death after that, oh well.
The Leonar betrayal caught me by surprise, again, as this is the second time playing but I don't remember all the details it seems. I feel like the end result makes sense, but, really, he should know he is not leadership material and should have just jumped on your sword instead of fighting out a legitimate 1on1 battle. Considering how the Duke's forces were depleted, there was no way Leonar was going to reunite all the Wallister elements.Calling Denam the bad guy or evil may have been too strong. But the game has grey morality, and I get the sense that they want to hammer home that you aren't some obvious hero. There were a lot of enemies calling Denam out for participating in the massacre, and the game made a point to let us know that a number of the people who have opposed us had noble intentions. That said, it does make me excited to play the Chaos route later to see how that goes. I assume it goes bad in it's own unique way.
As for the cleric fight, to me that was showing that this order of clerics from an enemy nation had a great amount of courage, fighting us even knowing they would likely get massacred since very few of them could effectively fight back. I actually killed the boss cleric the first try thinking that would end the encounter, and then the enemy general demanded vengeance, and the battle continued with him as the new target. My guys were level 10 and he was level 16, and my best attacks were just bouncing off. I reloaded and let him pass before finishing the fight. I'd love to know how you pulled it off.
Played a little bit more today, and I cleared the mission with the dragon (to save that spear-wielding woman), then killed the Necromancer. Here are a few things I learned:
The Dragon
- I had an easier time of the dragon mission after I taught Canopus field alchemy -- he was much more effective at healing up the NPC. But ...
- I also realized that I was making the mission harder, on my first couple attempts, by bringing 3 dedicated healers: Denam's sister, Donnalto (the priest you get on the way to the Necromancer) and a third random person. But, these guys are pretty squishy and are easy prey for the dragon. Mending leaves can cure just about as well as they can, if a character has Field Alchemy. And, knights are not bad as secondary healers.
- I noticed the dragon had Rampart Aura, which made it tougher for my guys (except Canopus) to reach the NPC. This makes me think Rampart Aura will be very useful on my characters and I'll want to pay close attention to positioning when using it, or other aura skills.
- The dragon dropped one of those class marks, but of course I can't just class-change one of my humans into an earth dragon. Maybe it's something I can use if I recruit a different type of dragon, or a wyrmling?
The Necromancer
- Because so many of the skeletons have bows, I gave sidestep to as many people as I could, and it made this mission a lot more manageable.
- I was surprised at how much the elevation created bottlenecks as I worked my way up! I think I will have to pay more attention to this, but I don't yet have the ability to look at the map and intuit who can climb and how far.
- I forget on which map, but I discovered that any class can cast a spell by using a scroll, and casting a spell from a scroll appears to teach that character the spell. But, if the character lacks the corresponding spell skill (Fire, Ice, etc.), or isn't of the right class or level to cast it, they still can't do so. Still it's nice to know that scrolls can be used as consumables while building out a character's spell inventory.
- I switched Denam to a Knight before this fight because of how useful knights were in the previous fights. But, I forgot to buy skills that would let him use divine magic or Rampart Aura, so ... he was less effective than as a warrior. In fact, by switching to Knight, the Mighty Impact skill I bought for him -- which guaranteed a critical -- became disabled, so I could not use it after I had Denam ascend the tower to take on the Necromancer. Alas! Last time I re-class and forget to check skills (I hope).
And as for the story: I find myself wondering about whether any of the choices I made so far will matter, or if they're just cosmetic.
1. I elected to save the spear-wielding woman. She wouldn't join me, and called me short-sighted when I told her I fight for Wallister.
2. I decided not to hold my tongue when confronted with Dark Knight Lanselot, calling him an enemy. I wanted to have my sister's back, and I didn't think of my Denam as so diplomatic that he would hold his tongue. He's young, yet.
3. I declined the Necromancer's offer to let him go his merry way. Not only would Denam think his work is an abomination (probably), but accepting the Necromancer's offer would be terrible for morale!
Alright, so I got beaten down by the necromancer again. My team is all level 5-6 with some ok(?) gear. Should I just head north for now? This feels unbeatable with my current lineup and understanding of the mechanics.
Also, is anyone else struggling to determine 1)Classes at a glance, 2) which units are actually enemies? The colours are often so similar that I often go to strike my fellow mercenaries.
I feel your pain! That fight can be frustrating.
I haven’t had a problem telling units at a glance, but I can see that it would be difficult. It may also help that I’m playing on an emulator, and the windowed screen I use is probably bigger than a PSP.
The fight felt significantly more manageable after taking a detour to the north. I’m not sure if it was the levels (I’m around where you are, level-wise), or just that the game is clicking better after a few more maps. But I would recommend: learning sidestep for anyone squishy, bringing magic leaves and having magic users use those on their opening turn (exorcism is expensive!), and bringing some spare exorcism scrolls to use, so you aren’t totally reliant on your priests and clerics. If you can thin the amount of undead, the fight will get a lot more manageable!
Thankyou, very helpful! 
I'll spend some time tonight going North and post back with the results later.
I was about 6-7 when I did the real Necromancer fight. I also remember the archers doing more damage than most of my other units against the phantoms and maybe the skeletons, so I'm guessing that applies to piercing damage in general.
I’ve been meaning to recommend always carrying at least 10 exorcism scrolls in your inventory. The cost is negligible and it makes battles like the necro so much easier. Often you’d rather be using your clerics for hasting and healing anyway. There are even later battles that start with a number of downed undead on the map and it becomes a rush to exorcise as many as possible before they come back.
I ended up making Denam a knight as well. I find Rampart useful to protect the magic users and he’s a tank so I can throw him in the middle of an enemy group and keep them fairly distracted. Unfortunately his damage isn’t great, not quite sure what I’m doing wrong there.
And as for the story: I find myself wondering about whether any of the choices I made so far will matter, or if they're just cosmetic.
Spoiler:1. I elected to save the spear-wielding woman. She wouldn't join me, and called me short-sighted when I told her I fight for Wallister.
2. I decided not to hold my tongue when confronted with Dark Knight Lanselot, calling him an enemy. I wanted to have my sister's back, and I didn't think of my Denam as so diplomatic that he would hold his tongue. He's young, yet.
3. I declined the Necromancer's offer to let him go his merry way. Not only would Denam think his work is an abomination (probably), but accepting the Necromancer's offer would be terrible for morale!
There are definitely choices like those you mentioned that can have pretty huge outcomes so keep that in mind!
Regarding those choices and trying not to be super spoilerish...
1. This may allow you to recruit her later, depending on other choices you make. There are other cases where, although a choice doesn’t appear to pan out at the time, it does keep open the possibility of later success.
2. Dialog choices like this one can impact your relationship with other characters.
3. I would love to know what could happen here, could never bring myself to make that choice. Should probably just google it sometime.
I've been using Canopus as a hybrid axe/crossbow death machine, he's been pretty unstoppable early in the game so far.
My enchantress has been pretty useful too, I taught her couple more dark spells and with meditation she's been pretty effective damage dealer so far.
Valkyrie has been ok in the early stages, the spear is nice for enemies that like to counter.
Keep in mind I'm still early in the game. I've been trying to do at least one battle a night to kind of keep some kind of progress with this, as summer stuff been keeping me super busy.
The Necromancer choice reminds me a bit of the Deneb choice in the original Ogre Battle. I'm not going to spoiler tag it, as we aren't playing that game. But ...
Pretty early in the game (maybe the 6th mission?), you're tasked with securing an area where an evil witch, Deneb, has been experimenting on the local population. She's tremendously unpopular; the dialogue, as you fight from town to town, confirms this. And then, you get to her castle, and she is damn near impossible to beat. She has a stun-all attack, and she's surrounded by animated jack-o-lantern people who can throw their pumpkin heads at you to take half health off your party members. This, of course, makes you think of how useful those jack-o-lanterns could be on your side.
And then, after you beat her, she pleads for her life, promises not to be evil any more, and offers to help you make your own jack-o-lanterns. But if you spare her, your reputation meter takes a huge hit. On the other hand, if you kill her, you get a big reputation boost. And, only a few missions later, you are given the opportunity to acquire a sacred sword -- but only if your reputation is high. That sword is necessary to unlock several hidden maps, a bunch of very powerful characters, and is one of the first steps to the best ending. It is also necessary for the worst ending, which requires you to give that sword to a demon.
So yeah. I'm not taking the bait and parleying with the Necromancer.
So, so tempting though!
I did some work getting Ninja class to lv 13 so now they're actually usable in battle. I also just got access to White Knight and Ranger but they're level 3 and 1 respectively so a lot of work required to make them viable.
More story discussion in spoiler.
Spoiler:That said, it does make me excited to play the Chaos route later to see how that goes. I assume it goes bad in it's own unique way.
As for the cleric fight, to me that was showing that this order of clerics from an enemy nation had a great amount of courage, fighting us even knowing they would likely get massacred since very few of them could effectively fight back. I actually killed the boss cleric the first try thinking that would end the encounter, and then the enemy general demanded vengeance, and the battle continued with him as the new target. My guys were level 10 and he was level 16, and my best attacks were just bouncing off. I reloaded and let him pass before finishing the fight. I'd love to know how you pulled it off.
Ch 2
I do feel like, that if one of the routes is canon, it has to be the Chaos route. My image of Denam is that there is no way he would have willingly gone along with the massacre in Ch 1. Admittedly, the game does a decent job of portraying his hesitancy and regret, and, like you say, he never lives it down.
For the general, he was at least 4 levels up on my team but I was able to have my best 3 melee block off the route with my best archer and cleric as backup. I think it wasn't long after I'd upgraded all my equipment and Denam had picked up a decent number of tarot cards to boost his stats. My remaining members were more than enough to keep the clerics busy. I thought it would be a war of attrition, maybe doing 5-10 dmg, but the dmg was more like 20-30 and I also had a few supers saved up so it only took a couple of rounds.
I finished another random battle and a story battle today — the first fight in the marsh. Started the next, but didn’t finish it. Not much new to report, although I do feel like my sense of combat is starting to click. And, I like that the game is slowly dialing up the number of units involved, and that I’m seeing a diversity of unit types.
Haven’t yet had a chance to use a recruitment skill, but I’m curious to try that. I’m also wondering how loyalty works, and whether there’s any way for me to tell how loyal a unit is.
Ok, took the LastSurprise's advice and detoured North. Saved the woman and immediately ticked her off with my responses, oops.
That was a really interesting fight though. I couldn't figure out why I was doing 1 damage to the "large unit" (is that a spoiler?), but I ended up just avoiding it and sniping the commander with good ol flyman. The woman almost died a few times, but I ended up sneaking a healer close to her side of the field and keeping her topped off.
The combat is starting to click, I'm understanding RT and some of the intricacies of classes. There's still a lot more I don't understand, but I feel like I enjoy it more every time I play. I'm pretty busy at the moment, so I've just been doing 1 random or story battle a night. Still on chapter 1, but I'm happy to take my time with this.
And to offer a tip: Read the Warren report and battle history! It can sometimes be a bit confusing understanding the story as it happens, but there are nice little reminders and summaries in that screen. Well worth checking out regularly.
The Warren Report "Talk" section can also give you clues on optional stuff that becomes available (but may not show up highlighted on the map). Worth checking after every story battle.
Haven’t yet had a chance to use a recruitment skill, but I’m curious to try that. I’m also wondering how loyalty works, and whether there’s any way for me to tell how loyal a unit is.
This may be controversial but I find the recruit skill (and variations for other race types) fairly useless. The reason being, if the character is a story character (listed in the People section of the Warren Report) then you'll never be able to recruit them using the skill, no matter how low their HP is or high your level is. Which makes sense really. But, basically, all it's good for is recruiting no name units which is not really different from just hiring them except they may have better stats.
Having a dragon in your party would probably be cool I guess but you do hit a unit cap at a certain point in the game. At that time, you'll have to make hard choices about which characters to ditch. In my case, I always favour units with actual back story, first because well they're part of the story, second because they may have interactions with other characters you meet or even be required to recruit them. Anyway, the first 3 non story units that you get at the start of Chapter 1 are who I ditch first. But, after that it's time for tears!
For loyalty, I'm not sure off the top of my head. I know that characters are either law or chaos and, in theory, if you're on the opposite route then there is a chance you might push them over the edge and have them leave. If you do want to boost a characters loyalty you can have them pick up the Lovers or Fools tarot cards when they drop during a battle. Just roll back using the chariot system if you get a negative to their loyalty.
Just hit Chapter 4, have to say, Chapter 3 (Law) didn't pan out at all like I expected.
First I thought it might wrap up with the fall of the Galgastan Regent. Then, the fight continues against the Bakram in Valeria. I presumed the Dark Knight would leave the Regent Brantyn hanging, but, no, two of them show up to save the day. Which they didn't. Poor Oz, how little we knew you... Anyway, all the politics are a bit of a mess now and not sure what will happen next.
There's still a lot more I don't understand, but I feel like I enjoy it more every time I play. I'm pretty busy at the moment, so I've just been doing 1 random or story battle a night. Still on chapter 1, but I'm happy to take my time with this.
I'm in very much the same boat. I've had less time than I anticipated on the road to play, but have been ending days upgrading characters and doing at least one random or story battle. I got killed once trying to rescue the woman, and haven't attempted the necromancer battle yet, but I'm leveling up my Beagles slowly but surely.
Well, I just finished the Xeod Moors and the (first) battle at Balmamusa. And, I hit the fork in the road at the end of Act 1. I'll need to take some time to decide which way to go, though I'm leaning with chaos.
The Xeod Moors weren't too bad. As usual, Vyse got out in front of everyone, wrecked the enemy for a bit, then got beat up and warped out. I didn't adequately anticipate how difficult it would be to get around in the swamp, but I did find a pro to Rune Fencers -- they can wade through water! Also, the ending of the battle caught me a little by surprise and made me laugh.
Get either griffin to critical health, and the boss will instruct his pets to flee -- and warp out with them. Battle over! The griffin's aggression forced me to win this way (by accident), as they flew right over my line and at my mages.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in Balmamusa. It was such an easy map. Starting at the top, and using archers from an elevated position? Easy pickings! On the other hand, wizards were next to useless, as they couldn't move through the buildings very well, and the walls and roofs would block the arc of their spells sometimes.
I kept waiting for reinforcements, or something. Oh wait, I found the twist ...
After the terrible story choice, I have to defend the low ground, taking the position of the people I just picked off. Great.
And as for the story element:
I haven't yet decided which route I'll take. But Mr GT Chris, I agree with you -- choosing to prevent the massacre feels truer to Denam's character so far. Using save states, I played through the immediate aftermath of both options, and so I got to see Vyse's reaction -- it seemed much more believable that he would break with Denam by choosing to commit to the massacre, especially after the way he treated the folks inside. But the story also felt like it had been building to a break between Denam and Vyse for a while, now. It makes me suspect that jealousy, or something else, is what's really driving Vyse.
It was interesting to see Catiua side with Denam either way, though on the Chaos route she sides with him on the merits and, on the Law route, because they're siblings. Blood is thicker than water, I guess.
It also looks like Ravness only survives on the Law route, but she is opposed to the Duke's plan, so I would be interested to see how the game makes her a companion if you choose to go that way.
Just hit Chapter 4, have to say, Chapter 3 (Law) didn't pan out at all like I expected.
I think I'll be done with Ch. 3 Law this weekend, and I can't wait to read and discuss whatever is in the spoiler. I'm through a couple of big story battles so far, so I imagine there's just a bit left. Story spoilers for where I am.
Last time I played, we took Coritanae castle, and the Heirophant killed himself. Each side has now captured the other's capital, and we're now off to fight his right hand man or something.
I also wanted to jot down some brief and incomplete thoughts on the Law route and a theme it may be conveying, although since I haven't completed it yet I obviously haven't seen the whole thing, and it could go a different direction.
To me the theme seems to be that of loyalty, and ways it can look different.
The route started off when Denam chose to be loyal to the Duke, and be willing to sacrifice others for a "greater good" of unifying the Wallisters. It's obviously actually very grey, but you know what I mean.
Ch. 3 had a lot of focus on Hektor, who seemed to know that the Heirophant was bad but was still loyal to the kingdom. He put a plan in motion that led to his own demise but let the Resistance get a foothold in the country that ultimately the Heirophant could be defeated for the people's greater good.
So I see a sort of contrast of what loyalty to something bigger than yourself will cause you to sacrifice for it (in this case, sacrificing others or oneself), and if that is the case, then Hektor is definitely set up as a hero of this story.
I did the fight where you had to save a lady, took a few tries as she kept getting sniped, but I finally managed to get my flying dude over there to give her a herb. Then imminently after battle I pissed her off...
I think I'll be done with Ch. 3 Law this weekend, and I can't wait to read and discuss whatever is in the spoiler.
I also wanted to jot down some brief and incomplete thoughts on the Law route and a theme it may be conveying, although since I haven't completed it yet I obviously haven't seen the whole thing, and it could go a different direction.
Spoiler:To me the theme seems to be that of loyalty, and ways it can look different.
The route started off when Denam chose to be loyal to the Duke, and be willing to sacrifice others for a "greater good" of unifying the Wallisters. It's obviously actually very grey, but you know what I mean.
Ch. 3 had a lot of focus on Hektor, who seemed to know that the Heirophant was bad but was still loyal to the kingdom. He put a plan in motion that led to his own demise but let the Resistance get a foothold in the country that ultimately the Heirophant could be defeated for the people's greater good.
So I see a sort of contrast of what loyalty to something bigger than yourself will cause you to sacrifice for it (in this case, sacrificing others or oneself), and if that is the case, then Hektor is definitely set up as a hero of this story.
Actually, I just threw up a few quick thoughts, will definitely post more once you wrap up Ch 3.
Regarding Hektor:
I think I understand the reasoning behind his and his father's sacrifice but I just don't really like that kind of decision making. Was there at least another heir to carry on the name? I feel like if you wanted to play out the idea of following orders to the letter but still achieving the desired outcome (of allowing your castle to be taken) then the father should have been the one to make that call and then take the fall for it. The future of the house must be more important than the reputation. Anyway, I feel like Denam was scratching his head over the whole affair!
In Chapter 4, two more optional areas open up to explore, a pirate's graveyard and a crypt (presumably both loaded with undead, bleh). I did the first map to get to the crypt but the area seems to be locked at level 20 so it makes the battles a bit too grindy for my taste (I'm average level 17). So I'll probably go back to the story for now.
I did the fight where you had to save a lady, took a few tries as she kept getting sniped, but I finally managed to get my flying dude over there to give her a herb. Then imminently after battle I pissed her off...
Good job and whoops!
End of Chapter 1 spoilers:
And as for the story element:
Spoiler:I haven't yet decided which route I'll take. But Mr GT Chris, I agree with you -- choosing to prevent the massacre feels truer to Denam's character so far. Using save states, I played through the immediate aftermath of both options, and so I got to see Vyse's reaction -- it seemed much more believable that he would break with Denam by choosing to commit to the massacre, especially after the way he treated the folks inside. But the story also felt like it had been building to a break between Denam and Vyse for a while, now. It makes me suspect that jealousy, or something else, is what's really driving Vyse.
It was interesting to see Catiua side with Denam either way, though on the Chaos route she sides with him on the merits and, on the Law route, because they're siblings. Blood is thicker than water, I guess.
It also looks like Ravness only survives on the Law route, but she is opposed to the Duke's plan, so I would be interested to see how the game makes her a companion if you choose to go that way.
Actually I can't wait to get back and do the Chaos route. Considering how little I seem to remember about the Law route, I'm sure there will be surprises waiting for me.
The Catiua relationship is definitely an important part of the story (why do they have matching necklaces anyway)...
Ravness is definitely recruitable but it's quite convoluted and I missed her the first time I played Law. This time I double checked a *cough* faq to make sure I had everything taken care of that I needed to.
I did the fight where you had to save a lady, took a few tries as she kept getting sniped, but I finally managed to get my flying dude over there to give her a herb. Then imminently after battle I pissed her off...
I'm in exactly the same place. 
I failed on my first attempt last night, then succeeded on my second. The only difficulty was getting healing to the woman before she died. The other elements of the battle were pretty easy.
I hope to try the necromancer fight tonight.
Things are starting to come together nicely now. I find I'm starting to know who my characters are and what they can do, and who to use for what tasks, etc. Still a ton to learn, but I've got enough of a foothold that things are definitely becoming very fun.
I played some more this afternoon. I cleared the necromancer fight on the first try with a Canopus end run on the boss. I was set up pretty well for the fight, with three healers on my team and a knight who can also heal. But I only had one healer trained with Exorcism and no Exorcism scrolls, so those dead skeletons were starting to overwhelm us. Fortunately, Canopus was able to take out the boss and end the fight before we got wiped out.
Then I did a couple of random battles and moved the story along to Balmamusa. Everyone is about Level 6-7 at this point.
I'm totally lost with the various factions in the story, so I think I might want to spend a bit of time with the Warren report before I lose containment on what's going on.
Where do you find these Exorcism scrolls? All I see is the gilmores that you use to teach the spell
Where do you find these Exorcism scrolls? All I see is the gilmores that you use to teach the spell
The scrolls that you buy to learn the spells are the same ones that can be used by any character during a battle.
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