Ogre Battle 88: In Which We Meet Sir Gawain of Exposition

Over in the corner, we find Sir Gawain! He tells us stuff. I forget what stuff, but it's important stuff. It seems to be about the Zodiac Stones and how Rashidi was looking for them. Well, we've got them. Come get them.

And this guy tells us how Rashidi came to have such influence over the Empress. The Empress came to the other rulers on the continent and warned them that Lodis- the villains of Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle 64, and pretty much every Ogre Battle game but this one -was making invadey noises, and they needed to band together and guard their borders. The others, Good King Gran included, elected instead to attempt to invade the Highlands and use Zeteginea as a buffer state between Lodis and them. Kind of like the plot to Final Fantasy XII, which was written by the same guy. Has a thing for buffer states I guess. So this necromancer shows up at the door with promises of absolute power and Endora invaded everybody else right back, uniting the continent and warding off Lodis... for now. And then absolute power and an evil necromancer corrupted absolutely, as happens all too frequently. So this is our chance to unite the continent under somebody less awful, we hope.

ZA WARUDO. Time to get set up for our attack run. Now, there are two choices to fight Endora that trigger special dialogue: Debonair, previously part of Endora's very specialized harem of blonde, long-haired Generals, or FLAIL. I'd like to point out that if FLAIL dies the game is over, but make your own decisions. I'm going with the jilted man-candy.

Unpleasant surprise here: as Gilbert flies over to get the town closest to Endora, which ain't that close, we see some opposition headed for our towns in the east. This is going to get complicated and I'm going to have to choose coverage VERY carefully. This will involve Lich-Shuffling. Which is a great phrase I will never get to use again.