This section details unofficial strategies that may help with completion of the chapter. This may not work for everybody.
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The player's army is split into three groups for the chapter:
- The middle group must defeat Raydrik and seize the throne
- The left group can protect the 8 NPC units and obtain the Kia Staff
- The right group can neutralize the group of Dark Mages in the bottom-right room
The middle group needs 1 Door Key. Galzus can only be recruited by the middle group, and only by Mareeta; if Mareeta was assigned to either the left or right groups, she will need to be warped or rescued to the middle squad to recruit Galzus. If Galzus is not recruited, he is dangerous to engage in combat – even with Ced and Forseti; he is best incapacitated with a Sleep staff. The Bragi Sword – which Leif can use – is incredibly useful for defeating Raydrik, as it deals bonus damage to him and negates the attack-halving effect of his Loptr Sword. The unarmed Bishops can be easily captured for staves.
The left group needs at least 3 Door Keys, ideally carried by different units as to ensure they can engage the enemies there as soon as possible to protect the NPC units. The enemies prioritize capturing NPCs, but if they cannot reach a tile adjacent to an NPC to capture one, they will instead attack at 2-range and kill them, so it is important to ensure that NPC units are somewhat spaced out and to kill any enemy holding an NPC as soon as possible. Once the Kia Staff room is open, two units from this group can block the staircases to stop reinforcements from appearing.
The door in the upper center of the map that leads to the room with the Kia Staff chest cannot be opened through conventional means. In order to open it, one of the child NPCs must be able to reach the door, after which they will open it on their turn in a short cut-scene. The NPC who is assigned to do this is randomly determined at the start of the map, and for this reason it is imperative to save every NPC, since there is no as there is no way to distinguish which NPC is required. The NPC required to open the door will always be a boy however, and not a girl. The NPCs have very low movement, so it will take very long for them to reach the door by themselves, provided that the way ahead is clear of threats.
The right group can neutralize the Dark Mage congregation and should have some free inventory slots if able. However, a few of the Dark Mages are so dangerous that they are best put to sleep or silenced on turn 1 – specifically, the Dark Mages with Sleep, Silence, Berserk, and Restore, as well as the Dark Mage with Fenrir. The Mercenaries with status swords can be lured away with a decently fast unit and their conditioned restored; the reinforcements from the right 2-wide hallway can be prevented from appearing by occupying the tiles they appear from. No other threat exists apart from the enemy with Hel, who is incapable of killing anyone with more than 1 HP, meaning that the right squad can safely spend the rest of their time capturing the Dark Mages and taking their useful staves so long as the right hallway is blocked to stop reinforcements.