Fire Emblem: The Discussion Thread (keep FE Fates story under spoilertags)

[Rutger]

I've only completed FE6, and I'm playing through FE4 now.

Anyways, if you want difficulty, then 5 or 6 are what you want, these two are some of the most difficult in the series. Possibly 12 as well, I don't know much about it.
4 if you want massive maps, but don't mind it being easy.
All have translation patches, but I believe 6 and 12 are more complete. 5 takes place in the middle of 4's story, if you care about that.

Since you like FE7, 6 would be a good one to start with imo, since it's a sequel. 4 and 5 are quite different from modern FEs. I've heard 12 is far better than 11, but that's about all I know about it.

 

[Zora_of_Ylisse]

I guess my favorite kids are Owain, Noire, Lucina and Laurent. I didn't used to like Laurent, but he grew on me. It's hard not to like Owain and Lucina. Noire is pretty interesting and... I love Snipers! Plus, a green unit! I like green units. Cynthia for honorable mention, because Pega Pony Princess :3

I always liked Laurent too. In large part because he's my son in just about every male playthrough I do. Miriel <3. Noire is interesting too. Feel kinda bad for her though. Being Tharja's guinea pig her whole life.

 

[Aninymouse]

I always liked Laurent too. In large part because he's my son in just about every male playthrough I do. Miriel <3. Noire is interesting too. Feel kinda bad for her though. Being Tharja's guinea pig her whole life.

I hate Tharja but I love Noire. I really feel like I can never win.

Tharja has very few supports that I actually enjoy. Kellam x Tharja, Frederick x Tharja, and.. that's it. Libra x Tharja was perfect RIGHT UP UNTIL SHE RUINS IT. Libra is one of the few guys she actually falls in love with besides Robin and she still blows it. UGH I hate it...

 

[Zora_of_Ylisse]

I hate Tharja but I love Noire. I really feel like I can never win.

Tharja has very few supports that I actually enjoy. Kellam x Tharja, Frederick x Tharja, and.. that's it. Libra x Tharja was perfect RIGHT UP UNTIL SHE RUINS IT. Libra is one of the few guys she actually falls in love with besides Robin and she still blows it. UGH I hate it...

Yeah, I'll never fully understand fanbase's obsession with her. Like, Miriel? I get that. Cordelia? I get that. Tharja? I do not understand it.

 

[~Firefly~]

I've never heard of anybody being a fan of Miriel. She's one of the most boring characters there is.

 

[Minato]

I didn't know there were Miriel fans lol

I hate Tharja but I love Noire. I really feel like I can never win.

Tharja has very few supports that I actually enjoy. Kellam x Tharja, Frederick x Tharja, and.. that's it. Libra x Tharja was perfect RIGHT UP UNTIL SHE RUINS IT. Libra is one of the few guys she actually falls in love with besides Robin and she still blows it. UGH I hate it...

I actually thought it was funny how they handled it. Which is the opposite how they handled Cordelia x Anyone. Her obsession over Chrom wasn't entertaining or interesting.

 

[Aninymouse]

I've never heard of anybody being a fan of Miriel. She's one of the most boring characters there is.

Nope, I really like Miriel. I actually think she's up there with Vaike for one of the funniest characters, although for a completely different reason.

I actually thought it was funny how they handled it. Which is the opposite how they handled Cordelia x Anyone. Her obsession over Chrom wasn't entertaining or interesting.

I didn't find it funny. You don't tell your fiancee that he's second fiddle to the person you were stalking.

Tharja actually has more of those endings than Cordelia has. That ought to say something.

 

[Gamegenie222]

I didn't know people dislike Cordelia as much as Miriel lol. Miriel I can understand but Cordelia I felt really sad for her.

 

[Aninymouse]

I like Cordelia just fine, as long as it's not a "Chrom" ending, if you know what I mean. I was just saying Tharja has far more "Robin" endings than her, and that it meakes Tharja look all the more ridiculous.

 

[Raziek]

So I went back and tried Lunatic again because I hate having never finished it.

I finally got past Chapter 2, but I hate how I have to do it. +def Robin, pair up with Frederick, solo the game.

Literally.

Only her and Frederick have gained levels, and she is level 18 before Chapter 4 (or Donny's Paralogue) even starts.

All my hate for what this mode is.

 

[NickRiddle]

And that's why it's the best game ever.

 

[Aninymouse]

Yeah, I've never cared to do Lunatic.

 

[Reizilla]

If I remember correctly, I went +Speed in my Loony run. The first few chapters were just filled with trial and error with little choice in anything. And by trial and error, I mean picking the best options over and over until I finally got enough lucky dual guards/strikes.

 

[Aninymouse]

If I remember correctly, I went +Speed in my Loony run. The first few chapters were just filled with trial and error with little choice in anything. And by trial and error, I mean picking the best options over and over until I finally got enough lucky dual guards/strikes.

There's enough of that in Hard Mode at times, I definitely don't want more of it.

I feel like Fire Emblem is too much like gambling at times.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

So I went back and tried Lunatic again because I hate having never finished it.

I finally got past Chapter 2, but I hate how I have to do it. +def Robin, pair up with Frederick, solo the game.

Literally.

Only her and Frederick have gained levels, and she is level 18 before Chapter 4 (or Donny's Paralogue) even starts.

All my hate for what this mode is.

Lunatic is still viable enough to try training multiple people other than simply Fredrick and robin. I felt that I was just feeding KOs to people like Chrom or Sully early on while Fredrick and Avatar acted as the decoys to prevent the other squishes from getting mobbed.

Once you get a enough KOs for say +hp or +def robin in prologue you can have avatar tank on a fortress in chapter 1 and chapter 2 with Fredrick as a pair-up. With +def you can pretty much have robin taking like 3/4 damage from even the axe users lol So long as Fredrick is not activating a dual strike Robin will not be able to 1RKO the enemies. With enemies surrounding Robin you can place a few squishes in range of the weakened enemies for enough to lure in at most 1 or 2 enemies for them to nab the KOs on. Rinse and repeat until all enemies are dead on chapters 1 and 2.

After that you are now having people like Chrom and Sully getting close to handling there own against the lunatic enemies. But, avatar/Fredrick will be the flagships until after chapter 5. Once you can get past chapter 5 the game eases up for awhile until you start nearing the velder (?) arc of the game.

I agree with you on this. Lunatic is such an artificial difficulty. Then again, pretty much all of the FE games apart from a few increased difficulty by simply increasing say number of enemies and their strength in relation to you. I guess the main complaint is that each chapter is a grind fest with such little variety. I do not even feel like I am making a strategy other than seeing how quickly can I move characters from one location on the map to the next while letting enemies kill themselves on my units.

There's enough of that in Hard Mode at times, I definitely don't want more of it.

I feel like Fire Emblem is too much like gambling at times.

lol If you want gambling go with L+ runs. I have only tried the first 3 chapters of L+ and only prologue can I possibly see a reliable clear strategy and its nothing more than running the Lunatic water walk one. While lunatic water walk idea would clear prologue 100% of the time L+ is still prone to failure depending upon enemy skills. Chapter 1 is marginally okay since you can go with the Robin+Fredrick on a fortress idea, but you are still at the mercy of the skills you get rolled. Chapter 2 lol L+R+Start until you roll the right winning odds.

==========
I hope the next FE games to come out go back to their original flare with fun maps. I liked awakening at first, but as I played it more the more I just dislike it now lol At least FE7 will always be fun to play :D

 

[Aninymouse]

This has nothing to do with anything in particular, but I kind of wish Generals could use Swords again. Great Knight would still have the higher speed and movement, so a second class with full weapon triangle doesn't seem to clash too much. I mean, Generals have the lowest movement, low speed, etc.

General was always my favorite class on the GBA games.

I keep getting flashbacks to Black Knight and how amazing he was and... yeah. I miss powerful Generals. Even if I don't get my Axe-nunchucks back, I would settle for Swords.

 

[Gamegenie222]

So I finally got Path Of Radiance finally thanks to one of my high school friends so right now she's loaning it to me till I pay her money for it. However the game case is missing the manual and her dog chewed on the top right corner or the case and removed some plastic. Not sweating too hard cause this game is finally off my to grab list once I pay for it and and afterwards I will need only two U.S FE games remain to own.

 

[Ussi]

What I noticed for fire emblem balance is that ORKO enemy units happens way to much mid-late game. So if they want to make fire emblem harder, they need to make doubling happen around 7-8 speed difference and make speed classes faster so they always double except against each other. Like make doubling something amazing, not standard. Then the game doesn't have to be a "kill massive mob of enemies, but instead strategically placing your units to have them tank as much as they can and rotate/heal them... you know like a strategy game... Seriously hate FE:Awakening's late game of just super pair up unit and go solo the map cause super units can't be hit and if they are, sol to heal. DLC maps might actually be better when its all capped stats, but I don't like the main game enough to buy the DLC.

 

[~Firefly~]

On that note, I started a Chrom solo to commemorate his exclusion from Smash 4. The first few chapters were a little tricky, but once I got past the hurdle of defending Emmeryn on Ch. 6 with only 1 unit (turns out the thieves are too stupid to open the door guarded by Lucina), the game became trivial. I'm on Ch. 15, and he has capped Str, Skl and Lck as a Great Knight. I basically just press start until everything dies.

 

[BlueSuperSonic1]

What I noticed for fire emblem balance is that ORKO enemy units happens way to much mid-late game. So if they want to make fire emblem harder, they need to make doubling happen around 7-8 speed difference and make speed classes faster so they always double except against each other. Like make doubling something amazing, not standard. Then the game doesn't have to be a "kill massive mob of enemies, but instead strategically placing your units to have them tank as much as they can and rotate/heal them... you know like a strategy game... Seriously hate FE:Awakening's late game of just super pair up unit and go solo the map cause super units can't be hit and if they are, sol to heal. DLC maps might actually be better when its all capped stats, but I don't like the main game enough to buy the DLC.

Or they could just raise enemy HP and Speed stats in general.

 

[Rutger]

A game where doubling is something special? That's FE4 in a way, a character needs the pursuit skill to double(lots of characters have it though, and you only need one more point in speed, haha.) It doesn't make things harder though because you just toss Sigurd at everything anyways, really it just gives you more units that make you question why you are even moving them across the map. Also, enemy phase becomes longer, especially if Canto movement is in the game, which makes for boring maps imo.

Changing how easy it is to double will not mean much other than making it easier to decide who you want to bring to the chapter.
Besides, IS has proven they can make difficult FE games with the 4 speed difference for doubling.

 

[Zora_of_Ylisse]

On that note, I started a Chrom solo to commemorate his exclusion from Smash 4. The first few chapters were a little tricky, but once I got past the hurdle of defending Emmeryn on Ch. 6 with only 1 unit (turns out the thieves are too stupid to open the door guarded by Lucina), the game became trivial. I'm on Ch. 15, and he has capped Str, Skl and Lck as a Great Knight. I basically just press start until everything dies.

You are my hero.

 

[~Firefly~]

I made a point to have Chrom do ALL the work too, which can be a bit of an extra challenge in some of the earliest chapters, like the Prologue and Ch. 2. Every single character has 0 exp except for Donnel, because I wanted to see if I could recruit him, and characters like Gregor and Nowi, who were literally impossible to keep alive and got swarmed before Chrom could feasibly reach them on his own.

 

[Aninymouse]

I made a point to have Chrom do ALL the work too, which can be a bit of an extra challenge in some of the earliest chapters, like the Prologue and Ch. 2. Every single character has 0 exp except for Donnel, because I wanted to see if I could recruit him, and characters like Gregor and Nowi, who were literally impossible to keep alive and got swarmed before Chrom could feasibly reach them on his own.

Normal mode or Hard mode? Because I can't see Chrom soloing Prologue with no pair ups on Hard mode. Other characters would undoubtedly have to draw enemy attention quite heavily.

 

[~Firefly~]

Hard mode. I found a way. It was quite a dance to keep Freddy/Lissa/Robin out of the way, but one of them got attacked by the first mage only once. That didn't even make a difference, because based on Chrom's position, the mage would have moved to that spot anyway. A little bit of luck is required, but Chrom can handle the two barbarians and the myrmidon in the first two turns, and then it becomes a matter of kiting the mage until you can heal up enough to KO him without dying. (the mage 3HKOs Chrom, but Chrom 2HKOs the mage) The trick is to do this without giving the mage a chance to get a hit, because once Chrom gets attacked once, he can't escape the attack range and can't start a player phase with full health unless the mage misses, which is mandatory to safely killing the mage.

Edit: And no, I didn't use the other units to manipulate the AI into giving Chrom room to breathe. This strategy would work perfectly fine if you could actually remove everybody else from the map.

 

[Aninymouse]

That's pretty impressive. At least, I think so.

Mind redoing that chapter on video? Do you have that capability? I'd love to see how you did it, because Prologue is such a pain in the butt, and I certainly have trouble with it at times. Of course I realize much of Awakening and FE in general is gambling with the RNG, so when someone discovers an ingenious method for solos and other challenge runs, I get excited :3

 

[~Firefly~]

Any attempt of mine to take video of that chapter would most likely result in something that transcends potato quality. :x I wouldn't mind making a video if I had the means to do it well, but I don't.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

I still wish I owned this game + 3DS but I got to borrow my friend's game again.
I'd erase my file and create a new OP generation if I had my own game.

 

[fe_wander]

Well, I ended up starting my Japanese-only FEs with FE6, and it's actually harder than I expected. Partly because I don't know the game as well as the others, and the reinforcements move as soon as they come in. But I am not used to a game where enemies actually use siege tomes consistently, and actually use decent weapons in general, especially since this is only normal mode. Also, sleep and silence staves EVERYWHERE.
Also, thrones are really, really annoying. Dat avoid.

I've hit the point where some of my characters are powerful enough that I can start rolling through it, but from chapter 7ish through 14, it's actually a decent challenge on normal. 14 especially was an awful chapter. Jesus christ keeping Sophia alive was irritating. I don't even want to imagine it on hard.

The Sacae route has been something of a joke so far, though, mostly because all the nomads are obsessed with short bows. A lot of my units aren't even scratched by those, and even my fliers don't take much damage.

All in all, it's certainly good. I'll reserve judgement for after I finish, but right now I'd rate it about 5th, of the 7 Fire Emblems I've played.
...That doesn't sound very good, but I am enjoying it. There's just stiff competition.

 

[Rutger]

FE6 is one of my favorite FE games, as my name would imply, and that's largely because of the difficulty.
I found the difficulty to be just right for the most part, but it's easy to see why people might like other games more. With almost every chapter being a seize mission, the lower hit rate, really strong thrones, and a dead weight lord, there's a lot that could rub someone the wrong way.

Still, it's one of the games that stood out to me the most, along with FE9(it's a shame NoA decided to remove the highest difficulty in that one though.)

 

[fe_wander]

FE6 is one of my favorite FE games, as my name would imply, and that's largely because of the difficulty.
I found the difficulty to be just right for the most part, but it's easy to see why people might like other games more. With almost every chapter being a seize mission, the lower hit rate, really strong thrones, and a dead weight lord, there's a lot that could rub someone the wrong way.

Still, it's one of the games that stood out to me the most, along with FE9(it's a shame NoA decided to remove the highest difficulty in that one though.)

The difficulty is actually okay with me, although a couple of the mechanics feel unnecessary, namely the hit rates and insane throne boosts, which are hell early on. The only chapters where I had more than one-two restarts were Chapters 7 and 14, I think. 7 being when you rescue Zealot (Jerrot in the new translation patch), Treck, and Noah, and 14 being the obligatory desert map.
Chapter 7's really not that hard, I just got thrown for a loop dealing with the wyverns in the first couple turns. I think I had to restart twice, but both times it was losing someone in the second or third enemy phase. 14 is pretty hellish though. And it feels like they went a bit overboard on the number of fog of war chapters, although that may just be me.

But yeah, the lack of varied objectives is frustrating (and a sticking point with me in Shadow Dragon and Awakening). Roy's actually been pretty solid for me, but waiting for his promotion in chapter 20-something is going to suck.

I'm on chapter 20 now, and the last 4-5 chapters have been fairly easy. I've been careful about getting all the divine weapons, of course. Trying to decide between 12 and 4 to play next, but leaning towards 4 for a change of pace from the normal formula.

Sidenote: Hate to say this, but Fir turned out far better than Rutger for me.

 

[Rutger]

Chaper 7 hard mode is one point where I feel they went overboard with the difficulty. You pretty much have just one strategy if you want to recruit everyone, and it's still a bit of a gamble.

Other than that, I like the lower hit rates, a lot of FE games end up feeling like hit rates only matter for enemies, it's a nice change of pace to have to plan for them.
Thrones are a pain though.
I don't mind having to seize every chapter, I usually try to rout all the enimies anyways so it doesn't change much. It's still unfortunate though.

As for Fir, well she's still a Swordmaster in FE6, and you never know how level ups will go. Either of the two can work, Rutger is helpful to have in those early chapters though, especially in HM.


I say go for 4 next. While I personaly don't care for the execution, it has a lot of interesting ideas and a lot of people like it. It's worth checking out.

 

[Gamegenie222]

So I'm a little bit halfway through Path of Radiance so far and I am loving it alot. Ike being promoted to Lord later on instead of typical I start off as a lord is very nice and interesting and I just beat Ch 18 and just recruited Shinon, Reyson, his bird guards and Tanith and have Oscar, Boyd and Kieran promoted and looking to get Nephenee and Mia promoted and working on my Rhys, Marcia, Jill, Rolf, Ilyana, Volke, Zihark, Brom, Gatire and Soren from the rear of a few levels to promotion. Also trying to work on Astrid slowly as well.

EDIT: Also Tanith's reinforce ability is pretty cool, reminds me alot of the Summoner ability to summon phantoms in Sacred Stones but you dont get EXP unlike that ability which once you got Knoll promoted you do that till your blue in the face.

 

[Ussi]

I forget if ally units' kills give bonus exp in PoR or not. i know they do in RD

 

[Gamegenie222]

If you talking about yellow and green units then no. Also I'm at Ch.20 right now and got Mia promoted as well as Volke even though he wasn't at lvl 20 beforehand along with recruiting Calili.

 

[fe_wander]

^Make sure you give Ike an occult scroll when you get the chance. You'll want him to have Aether, trust me. I've heard of people also giving him the combo of Resolve + Wrath, but I personally prefer Aether.
I'm surprised so few of your units are promoted though, you must be keeping a pretty large rotation going.

EDIT: Oh, and are you not using Mist? She's really useful for a specific chapter if you train her, but if you haven't been it's probably not worth it at this point.

 

[Ussi]

Resolve + wrath is better because 42 speed is OP. Lets you double BK and Ashnard and dodge relatively everything. Also massive strength buff as well with crits making it stronger than aether. Skill buff means higher crit rate plus wrath so 60-70% crit rate

 

[Gamegenie222]

^Make sure you give Ike an occult scroll when you get the chance. You'll want him to have Aether, trust me. I've heard of people also giving him the combo of Resolve + Wrath, but I personally prefer Aether.
I'm surprised so few of your units are promoted though, you must be keeping a pretty large rotation going.

EDIT: Oh, and are you not using Mist? She's really useful for a specific chapter if you train her, but if you haven't been it's probably not worth it at this point.

I have a occult scroll on him so he does have Aether and speaking of those scrolls I lost the 1st one on the ships where you meet up with Astrid and Gatrie cause a bird laguz stole it and one of the NPC soldiers killed him off so I didn't get it . As for Mist and the others yes I am using Mist she is lvl 11 right now and I'm mostly using her for support conversations and trying to get hers maxed with Rolf cause she and Rolf has 1 support conversation left but Rolf keeps on trying to talk to Shinon and for the other characters I'm trying to go for a healthy rotation going seeing this is my first playthrough of the game and figuring out who I like and who I don't like using while going for support conversations at the same time.

 

[Aninymouse]

Le sigh

All this PoR talk is making me regret selling the game a year or two ago... Oh well. Too late now. I don't often go back and play old games, though, honestly.

On Awakening, I'm currently having fun with a "no children" army. I'm basically running most of the gen 1 characters through a bunch of classes, trying to give them the "best" skill sets and final classes. It's been a lot of fun trying to decide on what to do for certain characters.

For instance, while I might make Cordelia a Hero or Dark Flier and call it a day once she has Galeforce (and drop her for Severa, sometimes), this time I took a look at all the possibilities. Cordelia gets Axebreaker, Bowbreaker, and Tomebreaker, which are by no coincidence the best breakers for a Dark Flier or Falcon Knight to have. But, she can also have Sol, Vengeance, Anathema, Galeforce and Lancefaire. Still, it seems she was designed with Falcon Knight in mind. I get that Falcon Knights aren't popular due to a low-ish strength cap for a melee class, but I've literally never used one and it looks like the perfect setup!

Other setups I'm trying are Warrior Henry, Bow Knight Chrom (I already know I love that one), Bride Tharja & Bride Anna, and others. It's been a lot of fun.

I have a occult scroll on him so he does have Aether and speaking of those scrolls I lost the 1st one on the ships where you meet up with Astrid and Gatrie cause a bird laguz stole it and one of the NPC soldiers killed him off so I didn't get it . As for Mist and the others yes I am using Mist she is lvl 11 right now and I'm mostly using her for support conversations and trying to get hers maxed with Rolf cause she and Rolf has 1 support conversation left but Rolf keeps on trying to talk to Shinon and for the other characters I'm trying to go for a healthy rotation going seeing this is my first playthrough of the game and figuring out who I like and who I don't like using while going for support conversations at the same time.

See, on my current Awakening file I was describing, the entire shtick is that I'm using most all of the gen 1 characters. This has lead to me hitting snags along the way SEVERAL times, feeling underlevelled, and being tempted to do some grinding on the side.

PoR is the same way if you try to use everyone, really. Most if not all of the FE games are. They're best balanced if you only use a core group about the size of the number of units you can deploy on most chapters, and nearly never use anyone else. It's even more apparent on no-grind games like PoR.

Still, it's not to say you can't win. It will just be harder.

 

[fe_wander]

@ Ussi : I know it's generally considered the better option, but I just like having Aether on Ike, plus the health recovery is nice. And I'm guessing gamegenie's playing normal or hard mode, which aren't really difficult in the NA/UK versions, so fortunately being optimal isn't necessary. But yeah, I could see how Resolve/wrath would be better. (Now, just imagine resolve + wrath + vantage...)

@ Gamegenie222 : Well, missing one occult scroll isn't a huge deal. I think there's three/four total but I'm not really sure. And if you can, try to have Mist promoted by chapter 27; it'll make a certain fight much more manageable. If not, make sure she has a physic staff on her. Remember to have Volke steal those from enemy priests so you have a decent supply of them.