Chapter 7: Hoshidan Prince

Desolate Gorge

Time Limit: 20:00

Victory Conditions: Defeat Oboro and Takumi.

Defeat Conditions: N/A

Anna’s Condition: Defeat 1,000 enemies.

Before starting the mission, make sure to go to your camp to make the necessary preparations such as getting new crests for your main characters, forging new skills in weapons, etc. In this mission, you won’t be able to deploy Rowan and Lianna but with reliable party members to deploy since you have both Sakura and Hinoka available. You’ll have six characters available, four can be controlled.

Sakura is a healer and archer which will her a valuable support and ranged attacker in the current absence of Lissa. She also have great crowd control and serves as the bane of enemy fliers currently in the Map so don’t hesitate to use her to shoot down sky knights with relative ease or plow through a sea of enemy peons. Furthermore, the mission has shorter completion time running at 20:00 compared to the usual 60:00 so you’ll have to engage and push through several objectives at once.

To start off, form two pairs of attack units that will take care of capturing forts and engaging enemy officers. The last pair can be assigned to guard the base or engage nearby enemy officers around the base. I suggest having Sakura take point of the western attack unit since there’s a lot of sky knights there. Your main objective is to capture all forts in the west, southwest, south, and southeast to look for the herb. Send one of your attack units to the farthest fort to the southeast (East Butte) and control Sakura while moving towards the western fort. Keep an eye on the Map as well for enemy archers and avoid sending Hinoka to engage them.

Shortly after, a Samurai will appear in the East Butte Fort and make his way towards Oboro to request for reinforcements. If you already have a unit there, prioritize intercepting the Samurai and defeating him before he reaches Oboro to complete the sub mission tied to it and strengthen the bond with Sakura in the process.

While you’re busy taking over forts, enemy units will also attack the main base so as planned earlier, having a defender stationed in it or nearby should be able to respond to this threat easily and defend the allied base. There will also be enemy units that will attempt to recapture forts so prepare to respond to them accordingly. The faster you can kill the enemy officers, the better. Once you’re ready, head to Oboro and engage her.

She’ll be a very tough nut to crack and will have access to fort healing, making it really hard to deal consistent damage on her. Furthermore, she’s also the fort captain so you’ll have to defeat her in order to capture the fort. Your best bet is to keep on the offensive and push her out of her fort to prevent her from healing herself over time. A nearby Samurai carrying a chest key will also join her but concentrate your attacks on Oboro since the samurai will get caught in it anyway. Use Dual Attacks and specials whenever you can to whittle down her HP faster.

After taking over the first set of forts, the remaining forts base will open. Shortly after, two sky knight squadrons will split and head to two different forts to the southwest and southeast to call for reinforcements as part of another sub mission. Make sure to order one of your attack units to engage one of them while you’re also intercepting the other. After eliminating the advancing sky knights, proceed ordering your allies to take over the remaining forts. The bond with Hinoka will strengthen as well for completing the sub mission. Keep a close eye to enemy movement in the Map and make sure to intercept large enemy forces that will attempt to occupy your captured forts.

After pushing back any enemy advance and occupying their forts, don’t forget to loot the chest west of the Grotto fort in the northeast to get a new weapon. After taking over all the other forts, Takumi’s base in the far north will finally be open. Concentrate your forces there (make sure that Hinoka is paired as a support unit, not vanguard) to gang up on Takumi and defeat him as fast as you can. Keep an eye out of his charged attacks since they can deal a lot of damage especially for solo units. At this point, you should have awakening and warrior gauges ready for use so trigger them to quickly defeat Takumi and complete the mission.

Takumi will be unlocked as a playable character after this mission.

First Memento

After reaching 1,000 kills, Anna will appear in the far southeast corner of the Map.

Second Memento

This will become available after finishing the main story once, and obtainable only by replaying the mission in Hard or Lunatic difficulties.

Anna’s Condition: Defeat Oboro before the Samurai reach her.

This will be easier in two-player mode since one of the players can concentrate in taking out Oboro while the other holds off the Samurai. He will spawn in the East Butte Fort so head there while the other teammate heads directly to the south to engage Oboro. When the samurai appears, the player should hold him off by staying near his vicinity, preferably while guarding to avoid unnecessary damage.

Once Oboro is defeated, Anna will appear in the crossroad path connecting the four forts to the southwest as shown below. This is possible when playing alone, given that you engage Oboro as early as possible (by partnering with a flier unit and crossing the gap south of the main allied base) and being able to defeat her quickly (requires higher level, powerful weapon, and offensive skills)