screenshot Let's Play Tactics Ogre: the Knights of Lodis

[Vaximillian]

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

That’s one cute face sprite.

I’m really liking all the face sprites in this game, but this one takes the cake.

[Laura]

wow new fave character, i love deneb with all my heart

[Parrhesia]

Since it may never come up in the LP itself, this is the default witchface.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Parrhesia

[Flee Fleet!]

woah, I didn't expect you would get Deneb this soon.

I'm glad that you did though, since I really like her and it would be nice to see her more in your LP.

[SoloCross]

...whoa. Wish more games had this sort of easter egg...

[Acacia Sgt]

Ah yes, Deneb. I think I did got her back when I played this.

[Parrhesia]

okay sorry for the poor update schedule lately, a mixture of university coming back into season and, let's be real, echoes (i always used to make fun of people's LPs dying because new games came out. haha i guess i can't do that anymore) fucked it up some. I finished Echoes about ten minutes ago and am getting used to dealing with a uni schedule again so anticipate the updates to start flowing again sooner rather than later.

 

 

 

I still can't believe you nerds picked Path A smh

[SoloCross]

In my defense, I had no idea my choices were contradicting each other and trusting Cybil lead to C R I M E (and the A path...) >_<

Edited June 16, 2017 by SoloCross

[Parrhesia]

Update 12
Damn, Damiel

Spoiler

 

Let's get back into this.

When we last left off, y'all wanted to do war crimes to mermaids.

And now we have a boat, and also a ninja retainer.

Who is worse than the random rogue we picked up from the dock guys because Tactics Ogre things.

Enter Robed Man.

Hey, you know what's really gonna endear us to Ric? Killing his goons.

BRO. WHAT THE FUCK.

Man, a bunch of guys terrorising a narratively helpless woman. This is easily the most FFT thing to have happened to us yet.

Yeah Route A, which I've never actually done, isn't terribly subtle about FUCK RICTOR.

bro this is literally our plan

... what?

This dialogue is Quite Clunky.

I'm finally twigging onto the idea that usually the goons get unleashed at the last chance. They unleash the goons - these guys plus another archer. Fight it out!!

We probably want to protect Minerva or whatever. Mermaids are aquatic spearmen, one of the two aquatic classes that I can think of. They're capable of fighting, badly, on land as well.

A really good cleric, a basic bitch knight and a... well, a bandit. They go in the garbage collection for a reason.

All shade aside, this is actually really interesting thematically, with the idea that... you know, the misfit knight Alphonse, only getting on the boat through his status as Rictor's Boi? Yeah, people resented that.

Battle plan for tonight's simple. We hold our shitty island. Two archers, two clerics, two knights, two ninja.

Minerva gets shot, but guards the brigand (Lendanto, not the generic... Mario). The archer crits her, which helps, actually - it gets her out of Cassini's range.

We stick to the plan.

Oh, yeah, there's a unit list, by the way. This is it. Each unit faces where they face on the map, cutely.

Ohh, yeah. Idiots go into the water.

Oops, this guy blocked the shurikens for Lendanto. With his head.

Fucker.

Bye, Lendanto! Oh, and I miss it, but ... whichever Hawkman that is gets the Self-Preservation emblem.

So what I'm saying is expect more deathpunches.

Aaand, bye Mario. Those might be the last two brigands in the game, but I'm not nearly 100% on that.

With the brigands down and Cassini/Damiel AWOL, we're free to finally rush forward and just brute-force the rest of the map into submission. The other knight goes down.

Oh, there's Damiel! And Cassini, too - he attacked and missed a bowhawk on that island, and I responded, as you'll notice, by flying away.

Anyway, the rest of the map's a formality...

Heal people a lot and you can be a Priest which is essentially a promoted Cleric. Some TO classes fit neatly into Tier 1 and 2 versions - wizard, ninja and cleric, mostly. Sorrell gets it a couple turns later.

Anyway, I was talking about formalities.

Leverage the Spear Mechanic and you can become a valkyrie!

Down goes Damiel, dropping his cool robe. We get ... whatever the named brigand's name was, we get his thing. His armlet.

Alright, nerd, be anime.

FUCK i miss the most good animation because I was expecting dialogue, but... she does look back. Just briefly.

KILL COUNTER

Good news: it inspires me to finally figure out how to get the rewind feature to work on this emulator. Next time.

 

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Of course, nothing goes as planned.

[Flee Fleet!]

That mermaid totally does not look like a child.

[Laura]

the mermaid and deneb and the fairies are my favorite characters wow i love them so much id kill for them

[Mage Knight 404]

I was even about to suggest investing time in the Rewind feature. We have to see more mermaid faces after all!

[Parrhesia]

Update 13
loss.jpg

Spoiler

 

To Rana.

In Rana, there are mermaids, and there is very little to say-

oh for fuck's sake

I'm pretty sure this still more or less happens in Route B, so, no, there isn't.

Almost Certainly Meant To Be Ariel is a special mermaid, as Ivanna is to knights. She has the lancer emblem and a sleeping spell.

And apparently she'll never lose to us.

Sadly for anyone hoping to see unit variety, this is... well... it's a sea map. I'm picking Alphonse because I have to, the clerics because it's prudent, but I'm dusting out Shiven and Tanya. This may be Tanya's last appearance.

Dodging that attack gives Trifon the Book of Initiation, for I think avoiding three consecutive attacks. You need it to become a swordmaster, effectively the tier two ninja (or, arguably, the tier three archer). We'll probably pick it up ambiently on all our fighters.

Shiven deletes a faerie.

Their next phase is... punishing.

Oops. Well, it was nice knowing you, Tanya.

So let's appraise the situation. We're in deeply disadvantageous terrain and now a man down. So... right now? It's time to cut our losses and just go straight for the boss.

Well, okay, and this dipshit faerie just because we can. Helpfully the other mermaids are happy enough to try and fail to sing at us from a distance.

An Octopus puts Lechies into a whirlpool for 150 damage but the cool gif I prepare of it fails to upload because there is no justice in the world.

Weirdly enough, it kind of all leads to a clusterfuck in the middle... and, because my clerics are finally just healing from land? Stabilisation.

Here's the whirlpool in action. They spin a lot and stars come out.

And, through our wild retreat onto two exciting islands, they pursue... onto land. So, effectively, the plan I was too impatient to just start wtih.

Starting from around level 10, hawkmen can sporadically shoot lightning hadokens, too, because... fuck it.

In the end, we manage to pick off another couple before the threat overrides the payoff.

By more than it already was, I mean.

Oh, we've left her at four health, with her turn. Is she gonna kill Shiven?

No. That's the end of the fight.

She takes the defeat fairly well, all things considered!

Alphonse will leave her alone, but he'll be super anime about it first.

Lady, you stabbed me in the back like six times last fight alone. Also, note her subtle shifts in posture - from mad to hella mad, to 'oh my rage is impotent'.

Ohhh, Aerial. Don't you look foolish now!

And it's off to the cave. That... will be its own update.

Hope you all really like exposition, my dudes!

KILL COUNTER

PS: Tanya is hella dead for realsies. We get all her shit back, though!

 

 

[epilepsyduck]

RIP Tanya, we hardly knew ye.

I know Mermaids aren't exactly amazing in this game but I actually sort of liked using them, at least in chapters with water. Lullaby is kinda terrible, though, especially compared to the abilities the other demihumans get.

[Acacia Sgt]

Man, them spears.

Can you imagine if FE had that, hahaha...

[Parrhesia]

I can promise I will try to use a mermaid where I can. And yeah, Lullaby hit like... half the time, at best. And then they usually immediately cancelled it by hitting the guy anyway, presumably excited by the 100% hit chance.

Also oops I posted this update a day early. Oh Well! Still, I should be back on schedule easily enough.

[Mage Knight 404]

Suddenly we're Yggdra Union now, hopefully with 100% less mermaid massacre!

Once I got Alphonse to go Swordmaster I never looked back, it was the most hype.

[Parrhesia]

spoilers alphonse is going swordmaster because the class is good and I don't like its model

[Parrhesia]

Update 14
The Exposition Zone

Spoiler

 

hi guys welcome back to the end of the hiatus

Sadly there is not going to be much for me to do apart from screencapping exposition.

I've had a lot of shit going on lately, so it's good to be able to sit back and just crank out this sick update after like two and a half weeks.

wow that overlaps perfectly with the Shit Going On zone, that feels like so long ago

To recap: Lodis is a big empire full of smaller states. The tiny, shitty island of Ovis is one, and it was acting up - so its boss in Felis sent his son, Rictor, over to go shake some cash out of them. Rictor brought an entourage, including his retainer, Orson, and tiny squire Alphonse.

Alphonse got split up with Rictor in a rainstorm, was found and rehabilitated on the shore by a girl called Eleanor, who nursed him back to health. Eleanor's currently the ward of the local priest, Hamon, A Cunt. A local knight, Ivanna, helped Alphonse to the nearest town, where he ran into Rictor again.

Rictor gave Alphonse some cash and some dudes to go between them and take on a nearby White Fang (the government, Bad People) stronghold in a pincer attack. Rictor never made it to the rendezvous, and Alphonse was taken prisoner.  He was left for dead but broken out by Cybil, an enigmatic Papal agent. To repay his debt, Alphonse decided to help Cybil look for the Sacred Spear.

Alphonse and Rictor met up again in another town, where a man claimed that Cybil was a war criminal. Rictor and Cybil shouted at each other a lot, and then the two parted ways. Alphonse then decided to have misgivings when it turned out Cybil's big plan was to capture and torture a mermaid in some big ploy to draw out the spear's wielder. Alphonse was mildly uneasy with this as opposed to strongly opposed, aligning him stronger with Cybil and setting him against Rictor.

Alphonse's crew moved north to the mermaid lands and ended up killing a squad of Rictor's goons along the way. To reward his loyalty and also, let's be honest, spy on him, Cybil sent Alphonse her retainer Shiven to travel with us full-time. After some Unfortunate bloodshed, we're now chatting to the Mermaid Queen, who's telling us about the spear.

Subplots: Ivanna's actually the rightful duchess of Ovis, Eleanor's still hanging out in that hut and is Pretty Obviously not going to stop being relevant, and this fairy Glycinia's looking for her renegade sister Lubina.

So now we're hearing the spear's origin story.

Past Chloeri had None chill.

Her none chill was rewarded by finding Elmer Fudd's spear and magic helmet to go kill humans.

She got good at it, too. (She shakes her head after killing the knight, and it starts, symbolically, to rain.)

This is the generic mermaid portrait, by the way - I'm not sure if we've actually seen it.

Makes you wonder about how the spear came about, really...

Hmmm.

AWWWWKWAAAARD.

This is sweet, though, and continues to characterise the mermaids as an essentially peaceful people that are just tired of fighting.

fam she literally just said she was tired of fighting

Left Mermaid becomes sick of Alphonse's questioning as I'm sure all of you are by now.

Aaaand scene. Next time, we go to Urodela in order to prove to Cybil that we were good enough to earn her trust! That we really could grab the Sacred Spea-

oh, shit.

 

 

[Dandragon]

Heeeey Cybil. So about that spear...

In all seriousness, glad to see this back, and I'm sorry to hear that shit has been going on for you, my man. Anything you wanna talk about through PM?

[Parrhesia]

Nah mate, there's been no serious dramas, just a lot of work and something had to give for a couple of weeks - that being, well, this. But hopefully it should continue without further interruptions from here on out on a regular 48-hour schedule.

[Acacia Sgt]

Good to see this updated again.

You know, in a way it could've been good for enough time to have passed since last update. Considering that... well, I'm pretty sure it will be stated soon enough, anyway.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Acacia Sgt

[epilepsyduck]

Y'know, I think Knight of Lodis might be the only Ogre series game that actually makes the existence of demihumans a semi-significant plot point, at least as far as I remember. In the others you've got these lizardmen and winged dudes and fairies running around without much fanfare, so it's kinda nice to see the game acknowledge that mermaids and the like aren't just Humans With Fish Tails or whatever.

[Parrhesia]

Update 15
"I have no idea," and I must scream

Spoiler

 

In a nice little detail, Rana has a mermaid shop! You can buy mermaids here! She has unique lines, too, though they're pretty generic and polite. She thanks you a lot.

Let's go back to Urodel-

or Arena I guess

Red and purple? Ohhh, this doesn't bode well.

But the unfortunately butchered Aerial just wants to talk.

Alphonse shakes his head.

The placement of these lines so close together - "man, a lover you'd do anything for... so, Minerva, right?" - kind of implies a relationship. Or, at least, I decide it does.

Why would you turn down the mermaid? I mean, I'm gonna get the dialogue...

... and as usual Aerial takes it with good grace.

She balls pretty hard even when we do recruit her, though.

Aerial is a tough customer, and her stats actually compare favourably to all our fighters. It depends on whether aquatic guys actively struggle to fight on land or if they just superthrive on water. I intend to get some use from her! She comes with the lancer emblem, which is just flavour since she can't reclass.

okay now we can go to urodela

Urodela's nice and peaceful now we aren't having a gang war here.

Cybil has, presumably, been standing here looking mad ever since we left.

I guess we sent a runner ahead to her or... something.

Minor issues with this LP's hiatus - I don't remember who the Sacred Flame are. Unless it's Rictor's crew? I doubt it.

And precious little's fuckin' changed, in the grand scheme of things.

"'Cause we picked Route A, fam"

Alphonse responds eloquently.

So unless my memory/common sense are both betraying me, this is the Actual Big split point. Route B guys are like 'yeah, bye...' though they don't actively rejoin with Rictor cleanly, or for a while, while Route A guys...

Route A guys angst, I guess. Cybil responds by flipping her hair.

"THESE ARE MY CHARACTER FLAWS," said Alphonse. "I AM A FLAWED CHARACTER."

Despite everything, it's still the canonical you.

Anyway yeah Alphonse basically just needed some room to thrive and now he's too cool for his old friends except for in Route B where he isn't, at least, too cool for Orson.

Conceal, don't feel...

I'm taking a Screenwriting class this winter term. In it, a core tenet is that you let subtext speak for itself. You do not let the subtext simply get tossed about until it becomes... text.

The guys who wrote Knights of Lodis should have attended a Screenwriting class.

It's a pretty sweet class, actually. You know you're in good hands when your tutor has a fucking IMDB page.

Related note; watch Underbelly, it's really good. Unless I guess it takes a nosedive after season 3? I've only seen the first three seasons. But they're really good.

By the way, the subtext of my desperate non-sequiters in this scene is; SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALPHONSE.

And Shiven sheds a single, salty tear...

Hell yeah! Dialogue's over now, ri-

-ght. Well. Anyway, Alphonse tunes out during Cybil - haha, relatable - and starts to flash back...

Hmm.

As has been established roughly four times by now, including about five lines ago, yes.

It's still stupid when it's self-aware! Just cut the line! I guess it's fine if you button-mash, but having to take all of these down is torture... still, at least the scene's headed somewhere now.

At least this should go well, right?

Red's a good colour, right... ?