Chapter 4 for Olberic and Alfyn.

Olberic

The writers really go all out in selling Olberic’s final boss as someone worth hating, an appreciable effort considering the guy had never appeared in the story previously and had little buildup in the preceding chapter. Granted, Werner is not especially interesting, cutting through the knot of Olberic’s angst with a basic power for power’s sake philosophy and a cryptic reference to the true final boss content just before he kills himself, but it’s all something. He also amuses me in that he’s one of the more distinctively FE-feeling elements of this game; he spontaneously generates a horse in the transition to his boss fight in the manner of some FE promotions, and that he fights on horseback indoors in the face of all common sense is a staple of almost every game in that series. The fight itself wasn’t all that difficult for a supposed final boss, but he was doomed to failed against my overpowered Olberic and a supporting party full of cheesy strategies.

More notable than the antagonist may be the slightly surreal narrative turn of an earnestly noble knight joining a peasants’ revolt of all things, though I suppose it’s intended to match the sheer over-the-top villainy of Werner and his excessive love of public executions. I genuinely was not expecting Erhardt to show up again, much less in the midst of the revolution narrative where he gets to be a bishonen badass about whom Olberic is presumably now less conflicted. They should have really gone all out and had his friends from Victors Hollow show up; it would have been absurd, but it also would have been epic in the blandly heroic way that Olberic stands for.

Speaking of things that Olberic stands for, he ends by returning to Cobbleston to continue giving lessons to his overeager protégé with the unnamed mother he’s probably not banging. This conclusion however doesn’t do anything to help probably my biggest criticism of Olberic’s story: whenever the characters discuss Hornburg I don’t feel it as much as I probably should, because now that I’m been over most of the map it’s clear that the fallen kingdom has very little tangible presence in the game world. I know there are some sidequests that reference Hornburgian kings and a few related dungeons, but it just doesn’t add up to feel like anything meaningful in the same way that I can believe the significance of places like Atlasdam or Grandport. The place only fell eight years ago, so it’s not exactly ancient history.

Party banter highlights: Cyrus states the obvious yet again, Alfyn and Olberic have a classic fighter/healer bonding moment, Primrose continues to assert that sex workers have a unique understanding of the corruption of men (…eh, fair point), and Tressa might ship Olberic/Erhardt. Ophilia’s objections to Werner’s executions are strangely poignant in light of the modern Catholic Church’s dim view of capital punishment…but that’s probably more coincidence than anything.

Alfyn

Here at the end Alfyn’s personal journey finally starts to feel like a cohesive narrative instead of an episodic travelogue carried along by coincidence. That’s not to say the scope gets any bigger; indeed, with certain spoilers in mind one could easily argue that this story has the weakest connection to what culminates in the game’s final conflict. However, here we learn that Alfyn has been chasing rumors of plague as a means of giving his quest some direction, and more significantly his experiences with Ogen reaffirm Alfyn’s fundamental optimism and connect him with his hero (now identified by name though not much by overall importance yet) and his no-homo’ed boyfriend. Seriously, throw some bad flirting with tavern girls and a postgame sidequest at them all you like, the subtext jumps off the screen here.

And yeah, this is a moving story in the end even without the intimate letter that makes Alfyn blush suggestively and also restores his resolve. Ogen is a complicated character, even more so than Erhardt, and while the story nudges the player to align themselves with Alfyn’s point of view the fact remains that the driving force of this chapter involves saving a self-flagellating murderer who explicitly would have preferred to die. Alfyn’s story may have relatively low stakes, but it makes up for it with some thought-provoking characterization.

I should also note that both Chapter 4 dungeons thus far have been longer and slightly more complex than any of those earlier, with multiple screens and several branching paths. They’re still fundamentally the same in concept, but at least these dungeons feel a bit more substantive. As for the ogre eagle, it’s neither very interesting nor very difficult. I still have no idea what the poisonous rainbow cloud effect even does; I thought it would gradually sap HP, but if it did I didn’t notice.

Party banter highlights: Alfyn is a good wingman (or the sex worker equivalent) for Primrose, he and H’annit bond over the quasi-father figures in their lives, and he and Ophilia have a conversation about vocations that’s pretty amusing when one considers the game’s job system. All the guys get some slashy bits in, whether it’s Therion drawing another parallel between Alfyn/Zeph and him/Darius, Olberic as a calming source of counsel, or Cyrus actually offering to take Alfyn out for drinks. Even Alfyn is surprised by that last one.