Reminds me of a story I told long ago... The story of Chapter 2-E.
Gather round, friends. Today, I shall tell you all the heroic story of Haar, the Dracoknight, and the battle of Chapter 2-E. This is, for reference, my first playthrough of Radiant Dawn, and I'm going in completely blind. I've not even played Path of Radiance.
Chapter 2-E in Radiant Dawn has a layout like
this.
There are two possible win conditions. One, you can defend for 15 turns. Two, you can kill the boss. The boss is at the bottom of that pyramid towards the middle.
This chapter is frustrating. VERY frustrating. After losing it 3-4 times, I decided to employ a new strategy. Turn 1, I would send Haar the Dracoknight as close to the boss as he could get. This happened to be on the lowest "rung" of the map. There would be no relief. No other unit could reach brave Haar, he would likely die on the first turn the enemy moved. The sole purpose of this strategy was to test the strength of the enemy army. I would see what kind of damage the enemies could do, watch Haar die, then reset.
Naturally, Haar didn't die. Our brave Dracoknight had decided that the Grim Reaper could not only go to Hell, but take Lord Ludveck's rebels with him. Attacks with 80% hit rates? Miss. Misses, misses everywhere. He ended the first enemy phase not only being hit just one time, but having killed and damaged more than a few enemies. Haar was down to about 30 health of his starting 46. The boss started with 45 health, and ended at about 25 ish.
So, proud of Haar, I decided to have Elincia use a Physic to heal him. Back at full health, he continued his one man assault, knocking our dear boss enemy down to just seven health. One more turn, and the map would be won, twelve turns short of the "Defend" goal.
During the next enemy phase, it seemed as if Haar's luck was still with him. But it soon became apparent that this was sadly not the case. He took several hits and ended up with just a single point of health left. But all was not lost! The enemy had nearly exhausted all of their troops attacking Haar. Only a single archer remained to face down Queen Elincia's Angel of Death.
The archer had a 51% chance to hit. This was it. The fate of Crimea, nay, of my entire playthrough came down to a single coin toss!
Alas, our dear friend Haar fell. And with that, the player phase began, the world darker for it.
Goodnight sweet prince, and may flights of Heron Laguz sing thee to thy reset button.
as long as there are no thunder mages.)
honestly, that game just hates the player, but I enjoyed it's maps design, as I did RD's.
Radiant Dawn was the first game I played and will always be my favourite, though I think I should've played it's predecessor first because nothing really made sense until my session of research.
Why we would do that, dear?
