- Picking only five of 19 classes is hell. I knew I wanted a Ronin and Ninja (the two on the left over there), so I added in an Imperial for big damage, a Sovereign for support and eventual healing, and a Protector because I enjoy not being dead (there are other methods of achieving not dying, but I'm lazy). I'll probably change it up a bit once I get access to subclasses.
- I'm also playing on Expert. Didn't feel up to Heroic mode (same as Expert, but you can't change difficulties later) for my first run just in case I get particularly stuck somewhere.
- You start off by completing ordinary quests until the guildmaster deems you "good enough", before being allowed to actually start exploring labyrinths. In other games you just get dumped into the labyrinth and told "here's some mapping parchment, off you go". I feel like this probably works out better if you're a newcomer - instead of having one large task thrown at you where you'll probably die (mapping out a whole floor), you get a handful of smaller, more specific objectives to ease you into the game, and gradually introduce new mechanics, before tackling the big stuff.
- The world map is the same as in Fire Emblem - it just dots points of interest on the map, and you can move freely between them. Guess they figured there was enough map-making in the actual dungeons (of which there are 14).
I kinda liked the overworld navigation from EO4, but oh well.
- When you do get to an actual labyrinth, though (which took me 2 hours), you're just dropped in and left to wander around for a bit before being given the map. I think the message here is "how'd you like being lost? this is why you need to draw the map
". It automatically fills in the areas you've been to before you get the map, so it's not too bad.
- There's one particularly nasty event in the first labyrinth where 3 people in your party get covered in toxic water. They lose a bunch of HP and TP, and you're forced to remove their equipment and then fight one battle where half your party has no equipment. It worked out especially badly for me because my Protector was one of those three people who had to dump their gear, meaning I had no guard skills. So I just threw my Ronin's Force Break at them and ran (got lucky and got all three instant kills, too). Events like this make me feel kinda conflicted because they're a pain to deal with, but they're also there to drive home the game's "in the labyrinth, anything can kill you" atmosphere, so I can get why they exist. Plus I'll admit it does feel good to overcome a challenge like that.
- "
somehow you defeat the pissed-off and hungry wolf" - I killed it in two hits, that's not exactly "somehow".
Wonder if I accidentally landed on a really strong team, or just got lucky.