I have a confession to make: I reloaded a previous save in Fire Emblem: Awakening last night after losing too many–in my opinion–key characters during Chapter 19 “The Conquerer,” which felt like a slaughtering in all definitions of the word. And by key, here is who died during that one battle: Kellam, Nowi, and Norne. Two main storyline characters and one downloadable archer from the Bonus Box section, but I was mostly annoyed with losing Kellam, as at this point in the game I’ve reclassed him to be a Great Knight, making him an efficient killing machine. So yeah, I felt a conflicting twist in my chest the entire time, watched the cutscene after the battle, and decided restart my 3DS before I got too far in and accidentally saved away my digital friends.

The irony is that after reloading my previous save, I lost two other characters afterwards while grinding in better preparation for a second stab at Chapter 19. I figured that this was the game’s way of punishing me for going against my promise of permadeath all the way through. I’m not the only one feeling that hurt; see ya, Olivia and Mycen–it’s been real.

Right. I was using Reeking Boxes in some of the later parts of the map–depending where you use the item, the stronger the enemies will be, which of course means more XP to be gained–and this map was inside a castle, which meant tight halls and limited movement. Unfortunately, I moved Olivia too close to Serra, my healer, who was too close to an enemy unit. Once it was the enemy’s turn, they immediately made a bee-line for Olivia, striking her down in two axe swings. A shame she couldn’t sexy dance herself out of that fight. As for Mycen, a magic user toasted his Fire Emblem Gaiden butt, and I had only recently downloaded, fought, and recruited him to the Shepherds a chapter ago.

So now I’m down two more characters, which means I’m not fighting with a full company of characters in Chapter 19. And I need as many peeps as possible to survive that ordeal, considering how many enemy units there are and how often the reinforcements get called in. I was able to get Stahl to propose to Panne, and they got married. I’m not sure how to go about getting them to breed and make kids yet, and I’d love to have their child in the fight. I’m also trying to pair up myself (the Avatar) with Say’ri in hopes of stronger stats and a child. But it looks like if I’m to get past Chapter 19 any time soon, with all my friends save and sound, I will need to dip back into the Bonus Box for some extra characters. Any suggestions on who to recruit would be appreciated, and for all intents and purposes, I won’t be bringing back dead downloaded characters again, even though you totally can.

Onwards, I struggle. I mean…march.