Alm is easily the most powerful unit in the series. People forget him easily. Definitely better than Sigurd, Seth, Robin, Kris, and leagues better than Ike. Bolt sword for the first half of the game and holy bow for the second just 100-0's the game.
It's okay to hate Awakening. Despite it's popularity mostly stemming from waifu pairings, it was a poor entry I.E. horrible.
No longer is it about warring countries in a mature manner, it's more a 2nd rate bad anime now. Fates probably won't be much better.
Also no feet because too much work.
The quality of Fire Emblem seemed to diminish after the last GBA game.
Especially when it comes to mugshots of the characters, the great sprites having more artistic value then the models have especially with the garbage toilet bowl armor. Oh those sprites? They have feet too.
RIP GBA General.
How do you go from this
to this
I still think PoR and RD are super solid while I don't think nearly as much of 8 as others, but I still like it. 12 is good. I don't think well of Shadow or Awakening at all. I do strongly believe that 3-7 was the strongest era of the series, with 4-6 being its core and 8-10 still being good (PoR is god). 9 and 10's problem is that they ditched how nice the last slew of games looked, 11 and 12's problem is that they ditched trying to look decent at all. You nailed one of my core problems with the series and its current direction. It feels like going through a just okay anime while cheesing everything without even cheesing in fun or cool ways that have tradeoffs and big roadbumps or epic moments/fights. That really kills immersion, the stronger entries were truly something unique. I do strongly miss the over-the-top and flashy yet somewhat practical animations years ago that the GBA games perfected from the SNES, as well as everything just looking really nice.
If I can find Nohr super cheap and used, plow through the game, and never overthink it or really review it like I did a lot wih Awakening, then I may shoot for that option.
Can't leave Mason ELIWOOD out.
In FE8 Seth is quite easily the worst character, at the beginning of the game, sure, he's extremely overpowered, but around mid/late game he's just awful compared to all of your other units who've had many more level ups and by far superior stats.
Also, in Awakening, just about every character can be op, especially the kids.
Seth is easily the best FE8 unit. Why? Starts off incredibly solid, never falls off, compares well to 20/20 units at max level due to solid bases and high growths, can be dropped into a map practically anywhere in the game and do fine, and even if you EXP sponge with him completely, the game will still be easy with him. Solo'ing the game with him requires little thinking or difficulty. You can A support him with Duessel and make them a duo to make it even easier with no effort, as if there were any effort beforehand. You can use him as a regular party member and never feel disappointed, too. He's not quite a Jeigan, FE6 (but not 7) Marcus, etc. He's under a different archetype, an Oifaye. A character's general utility throughout the game, their jointime, the $ required in raising them with weapons/promotion items, not needing to wait on promotion, supports, needing no grinding or babying, and what they start with are definitely much, much better than 20/20 stats. Sure you can grind Ewan to Druid or Summoner, but you can solo the game very quickly with Seth and invest a teeny bit of time to farm stat boosters at endgame anyways to solo Ruins.
Glad you're not falling to EXP sponges, but
good prepromotes do have many merits. Not saying this for all prepromotes, just the top cut of good ones out there. If you can cheese an entire game with a prepromote and have no trouble, do their 20/20 stats compared to others matter?
I would argue that most units in Awakening are useless due to incredible imbalance. You have ways to cheese the game in like an hour from the prologue, and those ways don't involve almost all of the cast or any grinding. Apotheosis is the same and has little merit to buying or playing. Sure you can grind for an hour to make Sully an unstoppable unit for the rest of the game, but that doesn't say much for balance or what makes her specifically good, and you could have the game done by then.
I used to think 20/20 stats and having units theoretically duel each other decided the better unit, but then years passed and here I am.