TheHeroOfLight

You are treated to this very brief scene for completing NG+. It sets up a sequel who knows how many years we will need to wait. Explaining a bit during the gallery display, I don't think the devs can really wait that much longer to resolve things, and I am not going to be following Sunrider Fantasy or whatever they end up calling it.

I don't think it is possible to get this ending on a normal game, so we had to go through NG+ in order to get it. There is a lot of banter from Claude and then you get the CG you see in the thumbnail.

We take a break from the main game to knock out a side quest we saw awhile ago that we are now strong enough to tackle. You will need someone who can Guide NPCs in order to pull this off, and seeing as the reward best suits Temenos, we may as well have him do the deed. The dungeon is fairly simple with the other reward being a weapon that you can pick up from one of the chests. You merely need to fight your way through the random mobs to reach the top where the bird that has taken residence is not happy about being evicted. Take it down, and as long as you have the NPC with you, the quest is complete.

This is the last planned Advance Wars 1 war room, where we take on Kanbei. In AW1, Max can beat him in a direct fight, so we take the strong man out for a spin to put the samurai in his place. The objective here to claim the base near the middle of the map so we can create units right where the combat will be taking place. Using our superior strength, we just need to ram through his defenses and we can almost just march to his HQ for the win. We'll have to see if we can repeat this in AW2, when we try it the other way around.

This is the end of the Advance Wars 1 campaign, with this map only unlocking if you have done all of the other maps. The good news is that on normal mode, you can win this essentially the same as I do here. The bad news is that in the advanced campaign, this is the RNG map, where you need to wait for Eagle to make a mistake to win, and by the time he does, you must have the forces left to capitalize on the mistake, which is not always possible. Sadly, there are a couple maps like that in the advanced campaign, which is why I never really bother with it in AW1. Pretty much doing it once, is more than enough for anyone. As for the fight here, Eagle has his forward bases and airport, and a sizeable economic advantage on you by extension. You need to rely on bottlenecks and cheap units to deal more damage than you take at a minimum ratio to make some way through him. The goal is to block tank attacks with infantry, anti-air attacks with armored units (tanks), shoot down his air units, and chip away at his ground forces with cheap artillery. Your north side is easier to defend since the city is right by the bridge, allowing you to heal and resupply with some good defenses while he is out in the open. The south is not as kind, so you will have more difficulty there more often than not. Once you can seize one of his bases, you pretty much have the foothold you need to turn everything around. Getting the airport in the middle of the map will allow you to start sending Bombers to blast his fortifications, and it will really limit what he is able to do in the sky. You can see here we had a bit of a back and forth for it before it finally fell into my hands. Anyway, the mission isn't too bad here, but I do not plan to do this on advanced. With the new vision rules, it may not be as bad as it used to be, but I can't be brought to bother with it since there are so many other things I need to do.

After far too long, we return to our MC to get a little more information about the mystery that is unraveling. We start things off with a new NPC from Ochette's story, then you get to see what everyone is using while I'm at the bar. As for what we see here, we spend the vast majority of the video investigating and talking before the twist strikes and we can go into combat (briefly). People say this is supposed to be one of the nastier bosses, but I did so much stuff before coming here that I could withstand what was thrown. Whether that is true or not, we'd probably need a different playthrough to find out.

I opt to use a different team than I did in the GBA version to show Drake here instead. It is between him and Sami for the least valuable CO on the Green Earth side of things, but it is possible to send a swarm of mechs through the mountains as Sami that can send Sturm scrambling. My main concern going into this is that I don't know how the targeting for the Meteor has changed and I did not stick around to test it out. It is looking like it may give higher priority to the number of units hit instead of their value, but that is based off a few drops instead of in-depth testing. Strategy here is for Andy to hang on. Grit can provide some support over the mountains, but he has a little trouble rounding the bend to strike at Sturm's core. You need a line of Artillery to shred a lot of things, but setting that up is inviting the Meteor. For Drake, I was hoping to get a few more Squalls out as it can take a large piece out of Sturm's economy and send some low HP units scrambling back for repairs. Sadly, things did not line up well for this here, and with the AI changes, the strategy does not work like it did in the GBA version. Ultimately, we still need to get over the mountains around Sturm, and taking to the skies (where Drake is weakest) is simply the best way to go. In terms of an ideal set-up, you will want Max on your left since he is the strongest CO in the game, especially with his new buffs. For the right side, there is a case to be made for both Eagle and Kanbei. Kanbei is restricted by the economy for awhile, but you can get a lot of mileage out of his existing units. Eagle can get started faster, but he is nerfed with his new power, so you need to be extremely careful when using it.

Sturm finally makes his entrance and you get a very small test of what he is capable of. He has no mobility restrictions, and above average power boosts for all units. Luckily, here he does not have his power, but this map would not let him take advantage of it well. I recommend Max for this one as he has the direct power to overwhelm Sturm, and you can turn this into a melee match without too much difficulty. Use your power periodically to smash any sort of blockade he starts to establish and you can easily bring him down. If he somehow gets the airport, you can use Cruisers to sink whatever he spawns, but you are better off getting it so you can add Bombers to your arsenal. Overall, not a tough match and you have a few ways to go about winning, so pick the method you prefer and drive things home as you make your way to the Final Battle...

This is essentially Ochette's fourth chapter, but due to the stupid numbering mechanic they have here, it is listed as the second. Realistically, if you have not gotten the other monsters before this, you are so overleveled and geared that nothing in their chapter should even be able to scratch you. Otherwise, we need to ascend the mountain in order to find Articuno, I mean Anivia, I mean Glacis... Woops. The journey itself isn't that long, but we get some insight into the bird and the surrounding environment. It is literally nothing special though as they are beating the exact same story drum they have been doing since we set foot on Ochette's island, and they will not change at all. If it doesn't work the first time, might as well try it four more times, right?

At long last, we have finally reached the end, entering the worst of prisons in the game in order to put the super boss of the game in its place. Sadly, the boss is largely capable of doing an AOE one-shot, so the easy way to beat it is to use all of those Goat Dolls we've accumulated over the course of the game. I was expecting more of a complex dungeon than we actually got here, so I was a little surprised. I did not test to see if we can even enter this place without the Guitar as it is required to summon the super boss. It would kind of suck if you wound up here on accident and were either underleveled or without the Guitar...

The requirements to unlock this would be claiming the Boomerang after he bites the dust and having cleared the arena. Once you have both done (order up to you), you can take on this opponent for Rudy's ultimate weapon. The annoying part here is the chance of instant death. If not for that, this fight would be fairly easy for how late in the game it unlocks. The strategy is roughly the same for everything from here: Cecilia debuffs the enemy then starts healing while Jack spams Magnum Fang and Rudy spams Phaser. When the force gauges fill up, we have some other options, but we only get those if the instant kill does not instantly kill...

The time has come to strike out and find a new area, and the frigid lands await us. I don't remember how many hours this was during editing because of the sheer number of random battles, but it is not really getting any better and there are few ways to alleviate it. We briefly pass the entrance to the hardest dungeon in the game that I have yet to record, so for those hoping to see it, there is still a lot to do before we head that way.

And for completion sake, we send in Max to bring the Green Earth campaign to a close. If you used him or did not use one of the other two for all of these, either Sami or Kanbei will be waiting to help you in the final battle. This mission is kind of weird. Drake has a few units on our island, which we can easily wipe out. Everything else stays on his island and we can wipe out the units that pose a threat to our navy pretty easily. From there, we make landfall and bring things to a close. I did end up playing this one twice, showing the second attempt here since for some reason, on the first one, he simply would not use his power. I do not know if he glitched or bugged out, so I opted to reset and try again. It takes a little while, but he does use it here. I don't know if there is something that makes him trigger shy or what is going on, but the AI is nowhere near as aggressive here as it normally is.

Andy's version of the campaign comes to a close with a very unique mission that no one else gets to experience. If you did all of the missions with him until now, Drake will be waiting to lend you his aid in the final battle in the GBA version. The objective here is to find a unit Drake is hiding and sink it, basically hide and seek with bombs. There are only a few places he can hide, and luckily, you are able to reveal it from land, so you are able to use the Battleship and Rockets to win rather than sending in your navy. He has a few units here and there waiting to mess with you, but you even have the option to ignore them as long as you know in advance where to find the unit. Since I wanted to sink everything, I took the invitation and attacked both ways before bringing the mission to a close.

The final of the bosses we need to fight for gear is Sado, who is in Malduke. If you've dealt with Lucifer already, this isn't something you haven't seen before. Play the guitar in the magic circle/altar thing and he will appear and attack. Take him down to get Rudy's ultimate armor. Due to how brief the video is, you can see there just isn't much here. The same strategy as Lucifer and Boomerang Flash, and since this guy is squishier, he bites the dust faster than either of the other two.

The requirements to unlock this would be claiming the Boomerang after he bites the dust and having cleared the arena. Once you have both done (order up to you), you can take on this opponent for Rudy's ultimate weapon. The annoying part here is the chance of instant death. If not for that, this fight would be fairly easy for how late in the game it unlocks. The strategy is roughly the same for everything from here: Cecilia debuffs the enemy then starts healing while Jack spams Magnum Fang and Rudy spams Phaser. When the force gauges fill up, we have some other options, but we only get those if the instant kill does not instantly kill...

I did this segment while working through Malduke, but I am uploading it separately if you want to see the fight. Our goal here is to get the ultimate armor for Jack, and in order to do so, we need to put out the fire on the altar and then play the guitar where the fire was. As for the boss, it has a rough start due to a random encounter, and once Cecilia has her debuffs on it, we just need to spam Remedy and Raftina while the guys whittle away at Lucifer. After a little while, he bites the dust and we move on. In terms of setup, due to our levels, I believe Magnum Fang to be Jack's best move, so I used the Secret Scrolls to lower its cost considerably, allowing me to spam it. Rudy has a few weapons to fall back on, and he is the one consistently hitting the damage cap. If either of them had more utility to offer, Cecilia could have joined in the offense, but you can see she wasn't needed for more than healing after the debuffs dropped.

I grabbed Max for this one, which is kind of a mistake in my opinion. With the units we have, I think Sami would have been a better grab, and I think I used her for this mission in the GBA version. The thing is that we are reliant upon Eagle to do most of the heavy lifting with his air force, and hopefully he doesn't suicide in the process. Since we do not have comparable units, we need to make the most of the infantry and indirects we have, and that is where Sami specializes after all. Unlike the GBA version, they've made Clone Andy an actual character this time, and it seems he has more voiced lines than the actual Andy. Hopefully Andy gets a better chance to shine when we hit AW2, but it will be a little while before we are there.

The Green Earth campaign comes to a close, and ends with a fairly easy mission. If you did all of these as Sami, Eagle is waiting for you at the end of the GBA version. For this mission, we need to save an infantry and we have a load of resources to do just that. My objective is to immediately get it over to one of the Tcopters, then dock the Tcopter on the Cruiser. Hide the Cruiser, and you've won. However, if you want a good score, you need to wreck some of his stuff, and it is a lot easier to do than some people may realize. Hiding at the north-most peninsula, we need to use the Rockets to weaken units so they have reduced firepower, use the Tank to block Anti-air, use infantry to block the tanks, and then chip away at his stuff. If not for the time limit, I think I really could shred everything he has, but the mercy rule kicked in and we get the win.

This is the final dungeon of the game, but not the secret dungeon. Since I do not want to make another trip through it, we will be taking out the boss here and then doing the remainder of the optional content, including the secret dungeon. I have edited out the superbosses here, but I do have the ultimate gear for all party members, and when you factor in the preparation I've already been doing for the rest of the optional content, nothing here can stand against me. We burn through everything here pretty easily, and then we can turn our attention to one last spelunking expedition.

Some neat facts here: this video was over an hour long with the random battles in it, because they are that numerous. Second, this is when I am finally losing my patience with the game. Instead of choosing to play these like the traditional games of old, you will see me gradually remove the gloves against the boss, and it will be only a matter of time until I start approaching all of them similarly. Third, this boss is a pretty popular choice for one of Ochette's monsters. I don't remember what it does off hand, but I keep hearing its name come up on recommendation lists. As for the graveyard itself, you can access it from Montwise and it has a powerful sword for any sword users, which I imagine most people will give to Hikari. The sword does have a drawback, but it is pretty rare from my testing. There are a few additional pieces of loot to be had here and there, but as we enter the final stretch of the game, everything here will be very quickly obsolete, so it is up to you if you want to bother making the trip at all. If you can get here early enough and use swords often, it can be worthwhile. Just be mindful that the warrior sword skill will triple the chances of buffing the enemy with every strike...

A somewhat simple map all things considered. You need to bait in his units appropriately and prepare for the second turn Lightning Drive. If you can weaken his units enough before he gets the power, they will do even less during the power, so it is important to aim to maim against Eagle instead of going for the kill. I think it is possible to give him his power on the first turn if you are overly aggressive, which may not be too bad of a thing depending on how bad the Lightning Drive nerfs were. I'd rather do things this way instead.

Neat fact: this is the exact same map Sami has here, except she has fog. Eagle does have a slightly different unit composition here since he does not have that Missile guarding his HQ, but other than that, I think the two maps may be completely the same. The strategy will differ slightly though since you can see Eagle coming and adjust accordingly. Your goal is to clip his wings, then you can either go for the rout, or try to sneak the HQ like Sami. He does have a Bomber standing guard, so you will need to either destroy or mangle it in order to get the HQ in a decent amount of time.

The fog can make this one a bit of a headache. Like usual when dealing with Eagle, he is going to get his power early since air units are so valuable. We try to bait them in first, wipe them out, then advance to create a bottleneck in the woods that we can exploit with the remnants of our air force and indirects. Then when it devolves into a slugging match and the route is secure, we can advance toward his HQ. Just be aware that he has a missile parked nearby to shoot down the Tcopter, and a spare Bomber to blast your infantry. Account for those, and you can slip in the backdoor instead of fighting to the last in the woods.