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Map of Chapter 12

First things first: you don’t have access to Elise during this battle . You will be relying entirely upon one character for healing: Felicia/Jakob. Equip them with a bunch of healing staves and jump in!

This map is one of the more memorable maps of the campaign, due to two things. First, we are under a 16-turn time limit here. We must either defeat Ryoma or get Avatar to the top behind where Ryoma is sitting. Secondly, there are status-inducing pots that are blocking our way to our goal. Many of these are very harmful, even going so far as cutting your HP in half for the entire battle, but some are helpful and can give you buffs all battle long. On top of that, enemies in Normal and Hard mode will not break pots themselves, so you can use them as blockades against them!

So how do you know which is which? When you approach the pot and attack it (select the command Break ), the pot will be marked as either Medicine or Poison . Obviously, you want to avoid breaking the poison ones. If you break a pot, all units, friend and foe, will be affected by the pot. Although we do not know which pots do what, their effects do not change, so you may go through a few restarts to figure out which pots are the best for breaking!

Towards the north of the map, close to where Ryoma is sitting, a Dragon Vein will trigger an earthquake destroying all of the pots at once and unleashing their effects on any unit within each pot’s range. It’s recommended you go ahead and set this off. Nothing will happen except that the battlefield is opened up.

Guarding the enclosure are the paired Saizo and Kagero, who will move to attack you if you are in range. Use the walls to your advantage to defeat them! Saizo drops the Flame Shuriken weapon, which is based off the magic stat. Kaze probably won’t have much use for it, but Felicia might.

At the end of the seventh turn, reinforcements will appear from the southeast and southwest. They’ll rush you, so just keep pressing forward and mind your backside.

There are some Shrine Maidens up ahead who carry three dangerous staves: Silence , Entrap , and Freeze . Take them out as soon as possible, they will spam them mercilessly. The Shrine Maiden with Entrap will warp any unit in her range right beside her, leaving that unit to the mercy of the paired Samurai in the closed room with her. As a last resort, those staves have limited uses, so they will break eventually, leaving the Shrine Maidens as cannon fodder. There’s a lucrative chest by one of the maidens containing 5,000 Gold but make sure she’s down and out before you try to open it.

Ryoma won’t ever move. He is a promoted unit , a Swordmaster , and his Rajinto hits hard, and from two tiles away. So you’re not safe from him no matter what. Surround him with your units, then slowly come in one at a time during your phase until Ryoma is dead. Or, alternatively, you can place your Avatar on the flashing red tiles behind Ryoma, and then Escape . If playing on Classic and a harder difficulty, Escaping might be better for you than attempting to engage Ryoma with your unpromoted units.