TheHeroOfLight

This is a bit of a weird one, as it is very much like the tutorial maps, which they may be giving to the veterans here since this is the first time we have ever been able to use Colin. The simple strategy is to send out a recon and mow down the infantry while you make your captures, then press your discount to overwhelm Lash. The trick is going to be the airport in the middle of the map, and should you manage to get it without too much trouble, it becomes easier than ever to rout her. Sadly, the next Colin map is quite the opposite of this one in difficulty.

The time has come to evict Black Hole from the Orange Star. In order to win this map, the seam of the pipe must be blown as there is no HQ to seize and the enemies will indefinitely spawn from the factory. Our goal is to send a force to the west to fight Flak's vanguard while the real strike force assembles in the north to attack the seam. Since we are using Max, a Bomber can take it out in one go, which is the plan. And just a reminder, this is a RNG map if you're doing it on advanced/hard. You are reliant on the random AI of Flak's units here to leave an opening for you to exploit. It is a little amazing how much this map can change with just a couple tweaks.

In order to bring Osvald's story to an end, we need to strike out in search of a new city. And since I have been delaying getting the secret jobs until now, there are not too many places left to find them. This means that we can finally put all of those Rusty weapons we've found to use by saving the blacksmith and that will unlock the Armsmaster job. I am not going to go out of my way to find the other weapons immediately, but we will pick them up. The important thing though is that you have the Rusty Axe as that is by far my favorite Armsmaster technique. When we get into some of the coming chapters, you will see why...

Last time Grit and Adder went at it, Grit had the defensive position and Adder had to come to him. This time it is the other way around with cannons. The hardest part of this mission is that I am used to the old AI who can always see you in the fog. His behavior here is significantly different since he can no longer see you, and that catches me off guard a bit. We are still able to move through the fog and woods and bring the mission to a swift end, but I will need to adapt to the new AI if we are going to play these on challenge...

The Blue Moon campaign kicks off and you get the first taste of what makes AW2 better than AW1, which is the characterization of the various COs. In the first game, you get a little bit for Orange Star, but everyone they encounter barely has any screen time before departing. Things are different now as all of the COs have their chance to shine. In this video, you get to see Olaf less as a blustering nemesis of Orange Star due to something in their history as he heads home only to find Lash has destroyed it. Mustering his forces, he has to drive her out and find the lab map in the process. On normal mode, this is a fairly simple map, but it takes a little while to force your way through the bottleneck in the middle (indirects OP), but on advanced, there will be pipelines here making the bottlenecks even more restrictive. Sadly, even after driving Lash from this territory, Olaf cannot undo the damage done and his home becomes something that only exists in his memories.

Our sailing excursion comes to an end with what is probably the second most difficult dungeon in the game. It does not feature any puzzles or much of anything to confuse you, which is a warning of the boss you will encounter here. Before you can get to him, you must defeat a lesser boss that is visible on the world map, but it is no match for us anymore. As for the other guy, his gimmick is that he sheds his weaknesses as they are struck, so you will want to bring a group that shares a single weapon type and eliminate everything other than that, or bring the guys who can deal break damage regardless. I ended up not doing either since I wasn't sure what all to expect (joys of playing blind). As a result, I end up isolating the axe weakness and Castti has to do some work here. Luckily, she is one of the characters that cannot bypass weaknesses for breaks, so she has something to do while I have Temenos, Agnea, and Hikari, all of which have ways to bypass breaks. Temenos has his latent, which I have to use sparingly, Agnea has one of her dances, and Hikari has a stance, so it is not as difficult as you may expect. Truthfully, I got kind of lucky I had all of them. Now sadly, this is the last time you will find me fighting something roughly my strength. From here on, I will be stronger than everything I encounter, and I have to go out of my way to try to hold back to prevent the fights from being an execution. When you get to Throne's finale, you will see that even with me pulling my punches, I still end up overkilling the enemy...

I did not want to come here until even later in the game, but the fact is that we're horribly overpowered for almost everything left in the game. This island holds the missing piece to unlock the superboss of the game, but you need someone who can Inquire in order to get it. Rescue the researcher and get the piece off of him, and then you should have everything if you've followed this up to now. I have Ochette as the thumb nail since I am going to be using the item we get here on her. Basically, anyone who is fishing for crits (warriors included with polearms) can use the Finisher's Claws to get an even bigger boost to their damage.

I came here in search of the item that would unlock an extra thief job for the crew only to find one of the items needed for the Armsmaster as well. There are no bosses or puzzles to solve, so you just need to make the rounds through the wreck to find the loot you're searching for, then be on your way.

When I did this one in the GBA version, I already had Jess unlocked and I opted to use her here instead as her mobility helps her either cut through the woods or drive around the loop. Since I don't have her here, I go the other way and bring Andy. Hyper Repair can offset Typhoon's damage, but I need some APCs to replace the lost fuel. Hyper Upgrade can give a little mobility, but not enough to race through the woods and strike his HQ. Sadly, my speed score takes a hit as I have to take his HQ as he hides a Lander.

I've neglected the ship for a bit too long and decide to take to the seas. There is a boss to the east and the west, and I opted to go east since I could see the fight from where I started. Smashing down the Scourge of the Sea (for the first time), I go past it to see what it was guarding and end up with one of the secret jobs added to my arsenal. Sadly, I've yet to find a place with comparable EXP to what I got at best here on the island...

A fairly short map that serves as a tutorial for how the lab missions will play out going forward. We have a limited amount of time to wipe out all of the enemies or seize the lab. I believe the rout is the easier route here, but you need to be on guard for the lander in the shoal. It has boosted defenses and few units can really hurt it, so it is important that your indirects lay into it. When you've wiped out the resistance, you have Neotanks added to your arsenal.

We get out introduction to some of Black Hole's unique infrastructure here. Basically, the properties on the left side are a trap, and you should ignore them after finding the map. If you send an early recon out to shred his infantry, his economy will never get off the ground, allowing you to just walk over and take what you want before making your way over to the cannon and bringing the mission to a swift close.

Max vs. Kanbei is now Kanbei vs. Max, taking the samurai against the strongman. I opt not to do the helicopter cheese strat to see how things compare timewise and I don't think there is too much of a difference. With Max's nerfs into AW2 and Kanbei's buffs (why?), you can beat him in a straight on fight since he can't use indirects well enough to stop your advance. The strategy is to rush infrastructure to pay for your advanced troops, get a fighter out to down the enemy copters, then smash him head to head. Hit him the right way, and he will be staggering repairs while you force your way through the wounded and siege his HQ.

Sami uncovers another Black Hole CO, this one more terrain focused than Flak rolling the dice. You have to be a little careful when she uses her super, as she becomes almost indestructible. Otherwise, poke her down with your indirects, poke her battleship with your sub, and make a path to her HQ via sea to wrap this one up quickly and efficiently. Don't worry, there will be other missions where Lash can be extremely annoying.

Partitio's story comes to a close, and while it is slightly more coherent than Ochette's story, is still too overly fairy tale like for my taste. Basically, I am skeptical of the happily ever after crap going on, and I think a steamboat would have been more influential for this part of the world than a locomotive. Essentially, if we need a ship to get around, the people will need one too seeing as there are two different continents here. As for the chapter itself, I get extremely lucky as you can see in the beginning by encountering the strongest of the caits and due to Partitio's EX Skill, am able to capture it. There is one more I encountered off camera that I was able to beat to further boost my EXP. This is important since I think Partitio's boss is one of the ones that should be done later than I did here. For one, Partitio doesn't really have a nuke skill (Arrow of Fortune?) to hammer a downed foe. Second, there is not much overlap between all of these targets to break them easily enough, and you need to break the small pieces to expose the big ones. Third, for how annoying this little mini-game is with a regenerating enemy and constantly adding gimmicks to the fight, it is just as bulky as all of the other final bosses. When all three of these overlap the way they do, it does not make for a very fun fight. Getting Armsmaster and at least the axe may have helped with nuking a piece down once exposed, but that is not in the most convenient of areas. Anyway, in terms of narrative, this one is better than Ochette, but not as good as some of the others. We get a little bit of building here, where we encounter Thurston and have to deal with his pet. Then disgraced, we get to encounter him again in another gimmicky battle (this is Partitio's permitted one per game), who goes on to reveal Roque's plot, sending us to the island. Alrond is a little predictable in my opinion, but he serves as the more experienced foil for Partitio, realizing what Roque was going to do in the third chapter. This is demonstrated by him giving Partitio the check, then preparing the boat anyway to get one step ahead of Roque for the finisher. Roque then goes over the permitted gimmicky fight per game, and is humbled. In the end, there is a lesson about the importance of people instead of possessions here as Roque is forced into Partitio's way of thinking as his reputation is destroyed due to his machinations. Alrond already reached the same conclusion as Partitio and the two throwing together gave them both what they needed. The only downsides here are that Partitio actually completes his character development in his first chapter by reaching that lesson and then spends the entirety of his tale trying to convince Roque, meaning Roque is the protagonist of Partitio's tale (seriously). Then the other part is that none of the other merchants we encounter in the world other than the one guy in Sai (see Scent of Commerce 1) seems to have any knowledge about marketing. Partitio just shows up, makes a lot of noise, and somehow succeeds... What I am getting at is I found Tressa's story a lot more interesting in conveying the exact same lesson, except she had the Diary and put all of the pieces together in her final chapter to win the competition and bring it to an end. In the first game, the protagonist of Tressa's tale, was Tressa.

In the first game, you face off against Grit here. Now, we get to use Grit to ruin Adder's day. The strategy here is to set up the vanguards on the flanks to stop him from claiming territory. I want to get a pair of rockets set up across the bay with an APC feeding them ammo, and I can shred his economy by attacking everything he creates, forcing them to spend extra on repairs. The wounded survivors are sitting ducks for the follow-ups by tanks and artillery, and then we are able to just progress to his HQ for the rout. Easy.

This is basically the tutorial for air units. Max is stronger than Flak in most skirmishes, so you can take him head on and crush him fairly easily. Just guard your stuff a bit in order to save some of your technique score if you're looking to get S ranks across the board.

We have reached the first of the final chapters, and we start with the one I had the lowest expectations for and am not surprised with the result. I recorded most of the videos you've been seeing over a month ago and am just now editing things together, so I don't remember whether I tore this narrative apart in the video or not. To summarize my grievances, Ochette has zero character development. She is the exact same as she was in chapter 1 with absolutely no insights or anything. There is no moral story around her gluttony, she does not behave any differently than before, and I think it is safe to say she learned nothing. Her setting is as derivative as it comes, with dozens of games and stories doing everything you see here exponentially better, and there is no impetus for any of this to change other than the Red Moon. The fact that everything is so tense there after the rescue she did in chapter 1, makes literally everything she has done meaningless and worthless. I believe that the average child could come up with a better story than you find here. As for the gameplay, we get to fight the moon infected creatures, and none of them can be captured. They are a little tougher here since this is the first of the final chapters and I don't have a lot of the broken gear yet (or the secret jobs). We just need to power through as the average enemy is just bulky rather than dangerous. As for the chapter boss, the stupid gimmick here is it has an AOE move that reduces everyone to 1 HP, then it can kill them on its following turn, because it gets more than one. It will gradually transform through the fight changing weaknesses, which isn't that big of a deal for a single target enemy (foreshadowing the next video). The major hurdle here is that you cannot accumulate BP or latent energy due to the frequent KOs, miss out on turns due to the KO and needing to revive someone, and then just deplete resources in trying to stay afloat. It is not possible to prevent the KOs, as the thing has multiple turns and you have no guarantee to heal enough between its turns, so this is essentially a real slog. Overall, I just am not impressed, and will go into more detail as we go deeper and deeper into these finales.

In order to reclaim the stolen sword we heard about so long ago, we must enter the Decaying Temple, but the door will only open if someone comes alone. Temenos and Agnea are the best picks for this, with Temenos having a bit of an edge due to his latent. Make sure you find the hidden spear here. As for Karma, the boss must be broken periodically otherwise it will use an instant kill move that bypasses instant kill protection (or there could be a translation error as there are quite a few of those). His weaknesses will change, so you will need someone a little versatile to constantly break him. Eventually, he will not have weaknesses anymore, so you will need either the Temenos Latent or the Dancer break move unless you want to use an item. As you can tell, I am disappointed that the exact reason I gave Temenos the shield he is using failed its one job.

Like last time, I am trying to use someone who I will not use very often in the maps for the easy one, and I opt for Nell since I don't like using someone RNG reliant. Unlike in the first game, the new defending CO is Andy, and he has access to his Super to give him a surge of healing, which can catch people off guard and allow him to turn around the map. Just be thorough with your targets, not giving him much to heal, and you can take him down.

Peace never seems to last, and Sturm is back with lackeys in tow. Flak has attacked Orange Star and we need to get the group back together to drive him out. Due to how short the intro missions are, I have one for Andy, Sami, and Max so we can enter the game properly in the next video. Flak is a weird mix of Nell and Sonja in that he can get lucky at times and unlucky at others. Due to his lack of consistency, he just isn't a good pick. What is even stranger is that his AI can be erratic at times, making it a little difficult to anticipate his moves, and he can't always mount effective counters.

A somewhat lengthy chapter that is front loaded with exposition. It falls into the exact same narrative trap that all of Hikari's chapters fall into, and I think this one is going to be what pushes me to make a special Octopath video at the end where I dissect the stories. As for here, somehow Mugen is able to exert influence on Clan Mei despite them being on a different continent in a different biome, and we need to go speak to Rai Mei. While doing so, we learn about what happened to Hikari's mother and see his bloodline curse take effect for the first time. Afterward, we get to navigate the fortress and come against Rai Mei before bringing her and her clan into the fold of Hikari's resistance.