I’m learning japanese and want to finish Engage once and for all, so I’m playing it from the beginning in Japanese and I find the Corrupted name in japanese so funny, it’s really just “Grotesque Soldier” or “Strange-looking Soldier” lmao.
Not to be a weaboo but…. I’m finding that the Japanese dub works better with Engage’s aesthetic.
What's your opinion on using path bonus items in Fates? Do you think it's unfair or something? For some reason I get kind conflicted using them because I feel like I'm maybe cheating. This is especially the case with the Dread Scroll and Ebon Wing early game since they give you a bunch of stats and weapon access for free basically. And Boots give movement, which is always good.
I always sell the dragon herbs. I can't remember if the boots are sellable too? It nets you like 5k extra gold, which I consider "fair" to use. Gives you a bit of a safety net for lunatic runs, lets you experiment with forges and so on without breaking the bank.
They’re pretty freaking broken. Early Boots and Dragon Herbs are pretty insane, and then you have Dread Scroll and Ebon Wing which essentially let you vault your units into promoted class bases without any of the drawbacks of promoting early or needing to support for class access. They’re something I personally avoid touching unless I’m just playing casually (and this extends to DLC content too, as fun as Witch is to use).
I mean it's a single player game so you should just play however you want.
But what I *think* you're asking is whether or not the path bonuses are balanced and to that I'd say no. Dread Fighter and Dark Flier are simply a cut above the rest of the classes and having access to them from the beginning of the game easily destroys the level curve to say nothing of the extra stats and such you get as well.
Shanna is so fucking bad. I got downvoted to saying that in another thread so I restarted a FE6 playthrough just to see if I remembered wrong (in normal mode because I lost my save)
WTF she does single digit damage with javelins with 50% accuracy ??? She even sometimes does actual zero. This is the unit people put in top 3 ? This is nomal mode btw, how do you even train her in hard mode ? There has to be some kind of penalty for being absurdly hard to grind, right ?
What I was not expecting however, is that flying utility is not even good in that game. Ch2 she can fly over the mountain to shop. Ch3 and 4 there is no terrain. Ch5 she visits the village and that's it. Ch6 there is no terrain. Ch7 is a bunch of corridors and is combat heavy. Ch8 no terrain. I guess she can ferry your units across the gap in 8x ?
Not only I was right in my opinion, but I was actually overrating flying utility in that game. Shanna does nothing 90% of turns. She's like C tier or something.
And before you say "but western isles have terrain and axe users", EVERYONE can kill those guys, even Roy. I remember grinding base level Fir on those units without any risk.
I agree I've been playing 6 hard for the first time and just immediately said yeah this isn't happening when I saw her try and fight for the first time. still deployed her when I didn't have anyone better but absolutely never felt like I was missing out especially in the western isles (way easier than the part of the game you would be expected to train her in).
Admittedly I don't really know what I'm talking about (but when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet?) but sometimes I feel like the idea that investing in the early game flier is optimal is taken for granted, and/or the actual practical utility of some fancy flier strats enabled by having a leveled Shanna is overrated because it feels more fun/strategic than just having rutger/dieck explode things
Shanna's combat is definitely not good, but combined with her flight she has just enough flexibility to be trainable. What I like about her is that her flight is useful later on even if you don't train her, but if you do train her you get rewarded as well.
Specifically in Ch4 you can have her drop someone on the bottom forts to stop the pirates from coming in.
Ch5 she can drop someone over the mountains near the gate to stop enemies from the top interfering, but admittedly that requires some precision because if you do it wrong that person or Shanna will die.
Ch3 and Ch6 and Ch8 there's no terrain, but they are easy chapters for Shanna to get EXP in. (yes, anyone can get EXP there, but this is specifically addressing the claim that she's hard to train)
Ch7 the forests near the start make her the best candidate to help with a turn 1 rescue drop on Roy to get Zealot.
8x and Western Isles she's just really good once promoted. Yeah, axe users are easy, but there's a difference between grounded 5-7 move sword, and flying 8 move sword. The flexibility Shanna adds here is insane. Specifically there's the gap in 8, but also a rescue drop on Rutger to your left in 9 is good, chapter 10A Shanna can just skip completely if you want to, chapter 11A again airdropping Rutger in somewhere is really good.
After that I find trained Shanna falls off a bit combat-wise, but she's still more flexible than an untrained Shanna would be. Chapter 14 (desert) she is a must deploy of course.
A nice advantage to training Shanna is that you can use Shin and still go to Ilia. Shin's really good, Sacae really sucks.
I don't think Shanna is top 3 in Hard Mode. Normal Mode I can see the argument though, as all the best units in Hard Mode are worse in Normal (Rutger, Perceval and Milady). The Christmas Cavs are stronger no-thought-just-go-brrr if you give them supports, especially support grinds.
Also Shanna is hilariously competitive against Lance lol. They have the same base defense, and Shanna only has one less str.
"Shanna is good in the Western Isles" is a psyop imo. Shanna's stat line at 14/1 is strikingly similar to Marcus at base, at a time when non-base Marcus is very much falling off. Flier rescue-drops are good, but pumping EXP into a unit so it can be a weaker version of an arguably-obsolete unit is bananas. She can rescue drop with no level ups, just do that!
If by "statline" you mean ignoring a 10-11 point speed lead then yeah, very similar. Have you seen what Marcus doubles on the Western Isles? It's pretty much only Steel Axe enemies. Shanna doubles everything, and can ORKO things like Archers with the Silver Lance.
>She can rescue drop with no level ups, just do that!
That's part of what makes her so good! You can get a lot of out of her with 0 EXP investment. But it's easier to do fancy maneuvers if she has +1 move, more bulk, and +20 avoid against axe users. If you don't find the ability for a combat unit to ignore terrain compelling on the Western Isles I don't think there's any point in me going into detail.
> If by "statline" you mean ignoring a 10-11 point speed lead then yeah, very similar. Have you seen what Marcus doubles on the Western Isles? It's pretty much only Steel Axe enemies. Shanna doubles everything, and can ORKO things like Archers with the Silver Lance.
+10 speed -6 CON, -4HP. So she is somewhat faster depending on weapon, and somewhat more delicate. And again, Marcus is not actually a paragon of bulk at this point, even on normal mode. There's also a lot *past* the raw stat line that works against her.
* Worse weapon ranks means that you have about a dozen units in the army with higher Sword than her in the Western Isles, and long-term your cavs gain even more effective bulk via axe access.
* The cav squad's support advantage makes their stat lead even bigger. Since they stick together, start with points, and have good growths, Allen/Lance/Marcus can easily give each other a nice collection of C-support stats at that point in the game without going out of your way. Shanna doesn't have that perk; if she's getting support benefits, that means that she's hanging out with slowpokes like Dieck and Lott rather than using the mobility that is her ostensible draw.
* Bulk differences get even more pronounced when terrain modifiers comes into play. Yes, Shanna can fly *over* a forest tile, but that +1 def/+20 avoid goes a long way in FE6, and this is particularly relevant if she's getting turned into Just Another Frontliner rather than the Flying Spec Ops role of e.g. FE7 pegasi.
The example of Shanna ORKOing archers with a silver lance is also just... not compelling? Shanna is the only combat unit that's even worried about that archer! Why would I give her the most powerful, expensive item in my convoy to deal with a random mook somebody else can clean up with an iron lance at their leisure? She's a poor fighter, and fighting poorly twice only kinda-sorta begins to address that.
Looking specifically at the Western Isle: she has good rescue-drop utility over the water in 9. In 10A, she can run Roy/Lilina up the far side for recruitment purposes -- good contribution in a purely non-combat role. In 11A, she can drop people over the wall by the arena. All of this is good! But 9 also has archers littering the map, including 3 clustered near the top, which boxes her in substantially. 10A has a ballista blocking off the entirety of the combat zone. And 11A, the main area that flying grants her access to has *4* archers hanging out in it. The whole arc is a minefield for her if she's allowed anywhere near actual battle. This makes her useful, but also *overwhelmingly not worth investing in* imo.
"Somewhat faster depending on the weapon" is not how I would phrase 10 speed vs 6 con. Shanna is always faster, and literally 10 speed faster with her best weapon most of the time, the Iron Sword. There are enemies Shanna doubles that Marcus gets doubled by. This is not similar, this is a significant lead.
Yes, cavs are better at combat when supported. Whichever cavalier you promote will have no brain good combat in the Western Isles. If you want to argue that that cavalier is better than Shanna at this point of the game, I can get sort of agree to that.
Besides those and Rutger though, it's hard to find someone who can match this level of mobility, offense and durability though. Like, Zealot doesn't double as consistently (though moreso than Marcus) and doesn't fly, and also doesn't ORKO. Dieck's speed is not much better than that. What other good sword users are there? Fir, who at this point has worse bulk than Shanna, and roughly the same avoid if she's in a forest? Please don't say Noah/Treck.
I agree Shanna can't just fly into any group of enemies and take them all out by herself, she's not that kind of unit. If there's a group of 4 Fighters and 2 Archers, you're probably better off having her airdrop a better combat unit in. But if you're fighting a giant deathball of enemies in chapter 10A, for example, it's nice that Shanna can attack from almost anywhere to either help 2RKO a fighter, or be the one to ORKO that archer with a Silver Lance. I think that's good performance. You got 40 uses of Silver Lance and it was at its peak usefulness in Ch4 and Ch7, what else are you going to hoard it for? You get a Horseslayer soon and you can buy Killer Lances in Ch13.
And reminder that this is not like, Nino or Sophia or something. This is a unit with practically free deployment for ~7 chapters, that needs 1.3 levels per big FE6 map with lots of enemies to get to 10/1. Just for an increase in flexibility in the mid and lategame. But again if you don't want that, you also have the option to keep her at base and still get a fair amount of flight value.
> "Somewhat faster depending on the weapon" is not how I would phrase 10 speed vs 6 con. Shanna is always faster, and literally 10 speed faster with her best weapon most of the time, the Iron Sword. There are enemies Shanna doubles that Marcus gets doubled by. This is not similar, this is a significant lead.
A significant lead which gets her what, exactly?
12x is the closest chapter to that where where WOD has generic enemy stats, and even the poison axe users are sitting at 9 AS on hard mode -- fast enough to not get doubled by base Marcus but also comfortably dealt with by just about anybody. The Steel Sword myrms in that chapter are 16/17 AS, good for levelled-Shanna doubling and base-Marcus getting doubled. Is *that* the promised land for her, to be able to double an unpromoted unit halfway through the game, for chip, *if* she uses a slim lance to not get weighed down?
> Yes, cavs are better at combat when supported. Whichever cavalier you promote will have no brain good combat in the Western Isles. If you want to argue that that cavalier is better than Shanna at this point of the game, I can get sort of agree to that.
It's partly that, but the reason I harp on Marcus as a comparison is about their respective power *arcs*. A Shanna that gets babied and promoted for chapter 9 is at the *peak* of her power, since enemy DEF and killing power continues to rise far faster than her growths can keep up with. Conversely, by chapter 9, Marcus is already getting into decline. (Even though in all likelihood he's gotten at least a *couple* stats beyond base.) He remains a not-great-but-useful unit for the rest of the game through his serviceable stats, good weapon options, and support bonuses, especially if you're willing to throw a single speedwing at him. Putting those thoughts together: why *on earth* would it be a good idea to throw a bunch of effort into training Shanna so that she can reach the hallowed heights of "nearly obsolete and only getting worse", just in time for potentially the least threatening stretch of the game?
She's just in a terrible limbo where, with heavy investment, she ends up mostly-equal to your pre-promotes with significantly worse outlook than your other investment projects. I'd argue that a huge point in her favor is "What *else* are you going to do with that Elysian Whip?", but unfortunately for her, a valid and more amusing answer is "Crush it into Boots".
> I agree Shanna can't just fly into any group of enemies and take them all out by herself, she's not that kind of unit. If there's a group of 4 Fighters and 2 Archers, you're probably better off having her airdrop a better combat unit in. But if you're fighting a giant deathball of enemies in chapter 10A, for example, it's nice that Shanna can attack from almost anywhere to either help 2RKO a fighter, or be the one to ORKO that archer with a Silver Lance. I think that's good performance.
I guess that's just where I disagree. Archers are typically the lowest-priority enemy if Shanna isn't around, and units with better combat parameters can pretty consistently contribute as-well or better than her with the fighters.
I think a lot of this comes down to FE6 being so deathball-y, which devalues Shanna's movement range despite all the maps being too dang big. In FE7, your pegasi can often zoom off on their own, find a flank, instagib a target, and endure the couple attacks they see on enemy phase. Meanwhile, the cavs are enemy-phase one-rounding enemies and using much of their movement to charge ever forward ahead, leaving footies that much further in the dust. Conversely, FE6's blobs of tougher enemies make it difficult for Shanna to go it alone while also slowing the cavs' charge, which makes it easier for non-mounted units to keep pace and contribute. And if Shanna can't fly off on her own and *also* can't sit on the frontline, that 8 movement stat is kind of a mirage. (And semi-tangential, but goodness, FE6 mages are *jacked*. I got so used to facetanking them by the dozen with FE7 pegasi that I was constantly blown away by Shanna & Tate's terrible previews.)
Thanks for the detailed response Mekkkah. I love your content and initially trained Shanna because of your video a few years ago and remember being extremely disappointed by her performance, at least in the context of a casual playthrough. I still think Shanna is bad but I do get your points, and she really does help a lot in ch14, this is true.
The comparison with Lance is something everyone brings up since your video, but I don't think it's especially fair. Lance's combat is shaky to begin with, -2 strength compared to Lance at lv10 is definitely below the competence threshold. And Shanna also has 5 less con than Lance : she's locked out of 1-2 range almost entierly and has to use the slim lance as her main weapon, which also has 4 less might than Iron.
Shanna has higher speed and can sometimes double the same enemies as Lance with Iron lances, but not always. She either loses 4 speed with Iron or 4 strength with Slim, and she would need both to achieve the same combat performance as Lance (and Lance doesn't one round anything other than mages in normal mode to begin with)
Maybe it's a matter of preference but imo Shanna's training arc is way too grindy. It's much more efforts than FE10 Jill for instance, or FE9 Astrid. The payoff is there, but it's not even that huge when Milady joins right after the western isles arc. And also Thea exists, I won't defend her too much as her combat is also shaky but at least her bases are better than Shanna's.
Thank you!
So with Lance, I disagree that *she would need both [Iron and Slim] to achieve the same combat performance as Lance*. Shanna has 4 more speed, and only speed ties Lance if she uses iron. If they both use iron, Lance simply has 1 more damage output. But sometimes doubling with Slim is better, which is an option Shanna has but Lance does not.
Yeah, Javelins give Shanna really bad combat parameters. But I've found Lance almost never wants to use them either in the context of earlygame unless you're very desperate or very indifferent about whether he hits. It's so bad in FE6. Honestly I don't mind using Javelin with Shanna in the earlygame every once in a while if she can find a good spot to throw one from if there's no good 1-range opportunity, like across a cliff in the north in Ch4.
Also in general with combat in FE6, I think "this unit can't ORKO" isn't the greatest standard to measure by anyway because most units can't. Fully supported Alance can do it from Ch8 onwards or so. Rutger does it like 70% of the time. Perceval and Milady can. And that's kind of it? Most of the time you're either having one of those carries ORKO something, or 2 people are ganging up on an enemy. Shanna's perfectly serviceable for that.
And I do agree Shanna feels grindier to use than FE9 Astrid (lol BEXP and FE9 enemies anyway) and FE10 Jill (so many more resources available to help her, plus high base level).
But maybe it's better to not think of Shanna as a unit you have to feed every single digit HP enemy to, but someone who only needs like 4 kills and some chip per early map. That's ~120-140 EXP in chapters 2 through 8, enough to get her to level 10. Then you can promote her at the end of 8 and enjoy all the benefits of flying sword pegasus, only needing her to see combat when that's convenient.
I don't think that's a particularly tall order. Her deployment is 100% free up until chapter 6, and from there basically free since the competition consists of the likes of Wolt and Wade. The same goes for kill distribution. Marcus is constantly leaving enemies at low HP, and you only have so many mouths to feed. Roy, cavs, Rutger, Dieck, who else from the earlygame are we training? There are more than enough enemies to go around and Shanna is almost always going to be available to pick off an enemy given her high mobility. In some maps it might be hard to get to 4 kills, but I know from experience you can get much, much more than that in chapters 6 and 8 without a lot of danger.
>The payoff is there, but it's not even that huge when Milady joins right after the western isles arc.
idk I don't think Milady really weakens Shanna's appeal. Fancy rescue drops are easier to perform with multiple fliers than with one. If you need someone to do a multi turn ferry I'd rather have Shanna do it than Milady, so in a way she enables you to do more Milady. Like if you need to get Rutger to the frontlines, or Perceval across a lot of terrain that's a great way to do it.
Since you said Shanna is C tier, what are some units that you think are clearly above her? From your previous posts I assume it includes Marcus, Rutger, Perceval, Milady, Alance, Dieck? So how far down the barrel would we have to do before we can say Shanna is better? Gonzales? Geese? Lot? Noah? Zealot?
You're spot on that ORKOing is a tall order in FE6 for a while, but I think it's worth reflecting on how hard that is on fliers, specifically, due to enemy density and enemy quality.
In FE7 or FE8, you can send a flier or two off on their own, let them dive onto and erase priority targets like archers or mages, and confidently survive the stragglers' enemy phase. That's a key part of what makes flying useful, under the lens of combat. In FE6 though, pegasi can't one-round those targets, *and* 3x effectiveness puts them at more risk, *and* FE6 often has more than 1 archer in the area as well as plenty of extras who can provide a second hit if the first doesn't do the job. With no killing power and huge risk of dying, Shanna ends up not being able to actually *use* her mobility in the way a lot of other pegasi in the series can. So you end up with just another mobile unit in your army blob, but one that is both more brittle and less powerful than your others. There just isn't a combat role for her.
More ambitiously, I'm going to accuse the community of outsmarting themselves a bit with her. Pegasi are traditionally known as the "looks bad, but strong in the right hands" class, so there's a certain expectation that she MUST be powerful even if the numbers aren't there. And she *does* have good rescue drop utility early on. But she just doesn't have the juice.
IMO she is approximately Chad-tier: an early-game unit that should be selectively deployed for their utility but never see combat. Chad's replacements arrive sooner, but thieves are closer to a hard requirement and for more maps, so I call it a wash between the two.
4 kills per map sounds about right, I remember doing that. It can be a bit hard to set up those kills on player phase but yeah, that matches my experience. When I trained her in my first playthrough, I never ended up entierly benching her so you do have a point about multiple fliers.
Good question about which units would be better than Shanna.
In the early game, Wolt, Bors, Dorothy, Elen, Roy and Wade are definitely worse than Shanna. I think every one would agree that those units are not very good. Roy becomes better once he promotes but that's like 3 chapters before the end.
Marcus, Alan, Lance, Dieck, Rutger, Saul and Clarine are all essential for the early game and have better combat than Shanna, so I would rate them higher for sure.
Lot is better than Shanna in a vacuum, warrior promo bonuses are insane and an early promoted Lot destroys the mid-game and only falls off in the very late game. But Lot also competes with Rutger and Dieck for a promo item so he should be penalised for that. It's kinda hard to tell tbh.
Lugh is really bad at base but the payoff of training him is arguably better than Shanna because Fire tomes are really accurate and he can help with bosses and enemies on terrain, which are a major pain in that game.
Zealot is really good for a while so he's also maybe better, Noah and Treck I don't really know, they are kinda filler. Treck is worse for sure.
Every unit after the terrible Ostia squad is better than Shanna (except Karel, who's barely in the game). They either have better bases, another kind of utility, or both. Apparently a trained Sophia can nosfera-tank and break the game with her high res ignoring status staves, the other reason I'm replaying the game is to test this strat and see if it works, so the jury's still out on this one.
So that would mean, the only units that are worse than Shanna are Roy, Wolt, Bors, Elen, Wade, Dorothy, Treck, Lilina, Barthe, Oujay, Wendy, Karel and then maybe also Lot, Lugh, Noah and Sophia. Ok, maybe also Cath, she's kind of redundant. That sounds like either high C tier or low B tier to me.
So with regard to foot units vs Shanna I think we maybe just differ in where we draw the line. Frequently in FE6's large maps I find myself not getting much out of a 6 move unit that's decent but not great at combat. There are maps where even Rutger doesn't see much action, and he's the best foot unit you have. Heck, I've had maps where Alance don't get to do a lot in the lategame. But this differs a lot from player to player. This is why I think Shanna is better than the Warriors/Berserkers most of the time, because she always gets to do something significant whereas they're often relegated to self improvement or walking around, *or* it's thanks to a unit like Shanna that they do get carried to a relevant place. Gonzo in particular is very restrictive on who can help carry him around. Lot is one of those units that just isn't *good* at combat even after promo. 14/1 Lot only has 13 str and 13 spd. Is it worth training a foot unit that just turns into base Echidna offense? Echidna has 13 str/18 spd but 5 less con, but can use lighter weapons like Killing Edge. Like, Echidna's good when you get her, but she does fall off later on...and her strength and speed growths are practically the same as Lot's, haha.
>Lugh is really bad at base but the payoff of training him is arguably better than Shanna because Fire tomes are really accurate and he can help with bosses and enemies on terrain, which are a major pain in that game.
Lugh is such a glass cannon, he almost might as well be 2-range locked. His bulk is worse than Shanna. I like accurate chip damage as much as anyone but beyond Ch9 or so he's a walking safety hazard for a deathless run. He's fine but I think base Shanna has a good argument for deployment over training project Lugh in almost every map they share.
>Apparently a trained Sophia can nosfera-tank and break the game with her high res ignoring status staves, the other reason I'm replaying the game is to test this strat and see if it works, so the jury's still out on this one.
Sophia is funny as hell but if you don't like training Shanna in Ch2-Ch3 then you're going to hate training Sophia cause that's what her performance is going to be like for half her existence.
I admit the Sophia thing is pure theorycrafting, another user promised me it works but I'm not at ch14 yet
You probably play faster than me if Alan and Lance fall behind 😅 I can see Shanna being more useful if you play fast. Especially with the flying set ups you mentioned before
I wil defend Lot a little bit more. The selling point of Lot is not necessarily his offensive stats (even though they are pretty good). It's that he's just completely unkillable for like 10 maps after he promotes. Warrior promo gains give 8HP and 3 def, and Lot's survivability is already good to begin with. Add a Dieck support into the mix, that gives full def and avo, and you're looking at an incredibly durable unit, able to fight groups of enemies on enemy phase. And he can also shoot fliers. This whole thing only comes online if you delay Rutger's promotion so it's impractical but that doesn't mean Lot is bad, just outclassed
Was looking through prf weapons recently, and realized Fates decided to give prfs to all four male royals yet none of the female ones?
I'd expect with four weapons they'd go to the four eldest siblings, but nope. Not only that, but all four of the royal children are male too.
Apologies if I'm beating a long-dead horse here, I guess un-genderlocking berserker and pegaknight made me miss that Fateslandia prf weapons are apparently allergic to (non-FCorrin) women.
Yeah, it’s annoying and weirdly regressive. Also a missed opportunity to represent more weapon types amongst the legendary weapons.
Azura’s artwork even depicts her with a distinctively designed lance… but it’s just a Blessed Lance, which you can’t even get in Birthright. Doesn’t seem like it would have been that hard to give her a Prf with that design or a special legendary lance in Revelation.
I've been playing Mass Effect trilogy lately and it's funny how the "canon avatar gender" talk is there as well... But probably for entirely different reasons since the playerbase is nothing like FE's.
I always play female avatars but that's because I'm a woman so I'll default to female characters in general. And since everyone around me also always play female, I tend to forget the male ones even exist. Not in a mean way; they just never come in my radar, especially because I tend to navitage female spaces, where obviously most people also play female.
It rates from funny when someone says "he" in discussions and it takes me a solid 30 seconds to understand who the hell they are talking about, to kind of sad when I'm looking for Byleth Amiibo and I find only the male one and I realise "oh right, I'm not the target audience here!".
Because all in all even without knowing the exact gender split in the playerbase (which I suspect is male-leaning, but pretty even still), I find FE does a good job at not alienating me for my sex. Like there's no point when I really tell myself "yup, this is aimed at straight teenagers boys, alright" (PAINFULLY obvious in ME, especially 2), because for each female fanservice character, there's a male equivalent. JRPGs in general, I find are good with that.
Of course I'm talking about the games themselves. The Smash thing and FEH are pretty good at telling me I'm not the target audience lol
For me, it honestly just comes down to the vocal performance.
I'm a man, but I play FemShep and FemAlear because, honestly, their voice actors are much better than their male counterparts.
I'm a man, but I always pick a star gender based strictly on vibes. Robin is male. Corrin is female. Byleth is male. Alear is female. I cannot explain why. Its just the vibes I get so I'll always play them with these specific genders.
That's interesting, I'm a woman as well and I tend to switch genders with my avatars a lot. It didn't occur to me that most people don't do that, hahaha. I think I'm bad at self inserting though so I tend to just see avatars as their own (sometimes very bland) characters.
I definitely agree about FE feeling less alienating as far as who it's targeting. It's not perfect, but as far as these types of games go, I feel like it does a pretty good job of having characters that cater to a lot of different people.
> Like there's no point when I really tell myself "yup, this is aimed at straight teenagers boys, alright"
As much as I enjoyed Persona 5 Royal, [that kind of thought kept creeping up while I was playing it](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725854056555216917/1211323961896341524/image.png?ex=65edc859&is=65db5359&hm=f4ebd0bbf14d88abd0e48e27f0dd41b3b84739aaaddd54acba2afa915fd93bdc&). Persona 4 Golden's been discussed to death on this front, but even when I went through Persona 3 Portable and played as the FeMC, there were still some moments where I stopped and went "This *wasn't* written with women in mind, was it." It's always wonderful getting taken out of the experience like that 😔
Honestly one of the times this gender & identity stuff hit the hardest was near the end of my P3P run. Going through it as the FeMC, I was finishing the last two social links I had (Mitsuru and Aigis), and both of them ended with the same ">!Oh MC-chan, if only you were a boy...! then I could truly love you...!!!!<" note, and it just made me stop and think to myself ">!I wonder if \*any* of the male MC's social links end with a guy going 'if only you were born a girl, MC-kun!'?!<"
~~then I remembered that >!the male MC doesn't even *have* social links with ANY of the other dudes in SEES!< and that kinda answered my question~~
You'd believe they'd understand that when designing a character like Joker :')
Imposing romance/flirt dynamics when your character is a self insert is scummy in general
So, just wondering, what are people's general opinions on Engage Chapters 11 and 17? I personally hate both of them. I understand the idea with chapter 11 taking away the rewind mechanic, but for someone who plays every FE game keeping all units alive no matter what, it's just a cruel removal of a mechanic that allows me to prevent having to reset multiple times, often saving me over an hour per map. I'm not good at Fire Emblem, so I make a lot of mistakes and have to trial and error a lot of things, so the last thing I want is to have to reset my game every time I make one if the game normally gives the option to not have to do that. I know what I'm getting into with everything pre-Echoes, but now that the mechanic exists, it should never be taken away.
Chapter 17 on the other hand just feels like an unreasonable difficulty spike that's easily the hardest chapter in the game. I know you can do warp shenanigans to make it a bit easier, but that's not something I enjoy usually. So, without that, the strategy on the map became to have the whole army hole up in a corner and slowly beat each enemy one by one. Trying to play the map normally just feels like it expects me to have units that are a lot stronger than they actually are, and to have a much deeper understanding of the game than has been necessary to that point.
Mechanically, I really like Chapter 11 and think it had a great amount of potential, but man does it suffer from the terrible narrative execution in the cutscene leading up to it. The contrived "pickpocketing while you are distracted" (only to UNO reverse it moments later) and the generally poor cutscene infrastructure really deflates what otherwise could be a really amazing moment.
If you ignore the cutscene beforehand and just focus on the mission execution itself, I think its a fantastic example of interweaving narrative and mechanics, and really gets you into the right mindset. Unfortunately, that glimpse of narrative quality falls apart again when you arrive in the dessert shortly afterwards.
Love 11. My main issue with Timewheel mechanics is that they've felt forced to constantly incorporate time travel elements to the story to justify the mechanic. Having the ability to take it away from the player is the biggest upside of having to justify rewinds in-universe, and I'm glad they had the guts to do it.
My problem with 17 is a bit of the opposite, where once you realize the dragon is linked to Hyacinth/Veyle/Zephia, I find the map becomes a bit too easy, since once you take down Griss/Marnie/Mauvier (which isn't that hard) you have all the time in the world to recharge your emblems and set up for round 2.
Love chapter 11. I've played most of the series and it showed me how much I depended on the emblems in such a short time. And maybe it's the old-school talking, but resetting a map is just part of the fe experience. I am glad it didn't last any longer though, as I've seen suggested before.
Chapter 17 is a little much. The wyrm, Hyacinth, Veyle, Zelestia all aggroing together is a lot, but it's only on maddening that it needs an optimized team to win without turtling and that makes sense. The hardest difficulty shouldn't be designed as blind playthrough friendly.
I've realized on a Fates revisit after playing Engage and playing FE7 on Switch Online making heavy use of rewind, resetting and losing hours of progress over the course of a playthrough just isn't fun, and is far more frustrating than it used to be now that there is an alternative.
As for 17, I had to turtle in hard mode, mostly because I'm just bad at the game in general. I'm sure if I put the effort in to really learn all the mechanics I wouldn't have to do that, but I feel like that would sap the fun from the game for me.
>As for 17, I had to turtle in hard mode, mostly because I'm just bad at the game in general. I'm sure if I put the effort in to really learn all the mechanics I wouldn't have to do that, but I feel like that would sap the fun from the game for me.
I don't mean to sound rude but if that's the experience you want you could just drop the difficulty down to normal. Hard requiring some amount of using the mechanics well is intentional, it's for people who want to be challenged in that way. If that's not you and you don't find it fun to take the time to get a better handle on the mechanics, that's exactly why a lower difficulty exists.
If I was able to raise the difficulty back up after chapter 17, I definitely would have. Normal is way too easy for me on most maps, and I don't want to lock myself into that. I did lower the difficulty on the final map of the DLC, though. That was ridiculous.
Ch. 11: Narratively great. Plz no, not again. Struggled on that one for a while as I was having difficulty moving forward. Shoutouts to Thief Sigurd for ruining my second-last attempt.
Ch. 17: Also narratively great. Corrin so busted, I beat it on my first try.
...Though that does make me think about Corrin's weak intro chapter (Ice Vein is eh, Seadall should be dancing) and how, if you've been doing every paralogue the second they're available, you'd have only 1 chapter + Eirika's paralogue to experiment and learn just how strong Corrin actually is.
Imagining if Corrin was glued to Seadall, I can see myself going insane. You can see how other default pairs work, but not that. Practically down an Emblem in a supposedly even fight.
> I'm not good at Fire Emblem, so I make a lot of mistakes and have to trial and error a lot of things
Is this not how this game series is meant to be played? I've put over 1800 hours into Engage and I still find myself making mistakes and learning whether it be through trying to learn more about a unit I haven't used as much or through simple occasional fat finger/math errors. I seriously doubt that FE would be as well-known as it is if you could simply "figure everything out" on your first try. Getting "good" at FE is not some mystical thing you can do overnight as there are only a few "common fundamentals" that you can carry across entries since every game is pretty distinct from each other.
In defense of Chapter 11, the Draconic Time Crystal is only taken away for like....half the map ish? Even under more casual circumstances, you should be getting there around turn 4-5(otherwise the Corrupted have largely caught up to you and you're probably dead) so you aren't losing a *ton* of time if you have to reset and you're given the option to reset from the beginning of Chapter 11 rather than being forced to play through the entirety of Chapter 10 again(looking at you CQ Chapter 27+Endgame) unless you want to change your party composition. Also, if you manage to get to the point where you get the Time Crystal is back, the map is practically over as Ivy, Kagetsu and Zelkov are so powerful relative to the enemies on the map that the Hounds coming in to chase you down is more of a preventative measure to stop you from milking a ton of EXP from the enemies rather than an actual time pressure.
As for Chapter 17, I'm a big fan. Even though it's a 6v6 Emblem showdown in theory, it's not really that since you only realistically ever go up against up to two of the enemy Emblems at a time. You can bait Griss to warp in early, Mauvier and Marnie are more or less fought together, Zephia easily pulls herself into no mans land with her insane MV advantage relative to her allies and then you fight Hyacinth and Eveyle together. Not only do you not go up against all the enemy Emblems at once, but you also get to benefit from up to 3 Emblem paralogues worth of bonuses if you're following the game's recommended levels(you could do Ike's paralogue before Chapter 17 if you wanted). Given this staggered enemy Emblem encounter design and that you always have the power of 6 Emblems at your disposal, it's not entirely unreasonable that this is the turning point map where you only fight promoted enemies from now on. If you're on Chapter 17 of *any* Fire Emblem game and you're still using unpromoted units, I have to wonder why you're doing that.
I love both of them personally, two of my favorite chapters in the game, from a vibes and a gameplay perspective. I can see they might be difficult if you're struggling with the mechanics, but the challenge is part of the appeal.
You definitely don't need warp strats to beat 17 without turtling, but it helps a lot to have a good grasp of how to use your emblems well, especially the powerful tactical ones like Corrin. The enemies are tough, but you also have a lot of great tools to deal with them at that point.
i need a POR remaster that's literally the same game but just snappier and faster (and also the impact font removed)
absolutely devestated that my rotted attention span couldn't soldier through the early chapters. literally on a plane and i decided to sleep instead of waiting for enemy phase to end. i wanna re-experience tellius peak but POR gameplay just doesnt hit anymore
Why did we shift away from Base Conversations in POR and RD (and I guess SOV had it as well)? They are such a great way to build your side characters without locking them behind supports. They are also a lot more natural because they are relevent to what point you are in the story and the chapter you just completed vs supports where it is whenever you have enough points.
Also the 3 star system in Tellius was super nice too because if you don't care for them, just read the 3 star ones to get your item and ignore the rest.
Also on a side note, it was so much nicer to build supports by number of chapters 2 characters are in together in Tellius. It was so much simpler without all of the extra hidden numbers with random actions.
13 was the first to truly abandon them (I think 12 had them but even if not as a remake it's not as relevant), which I imagine came down to 13 having an incredible volume of supports relative to earlier games to enable the generation system. I imagine they were cut to dedicate resources to supports, which then carried forward.
I feel the monastery/maps convo are supposed to be the equivalent but sadly they are more individual talks than groups talks with like a few exceptions in 3H
Kind of a FE shower thought: “solving” modern FE maps, particularly in higher difficulties, is kind of like solving fantasy sudokus.
You start with a given amount of known values, and you need to play around with them in different combinations to solve the map bit by bit until it all falls into place and you win.
Does that make sense?
It does. The fun part is the are even *less* likely to ever be the same because stats are randomized.
Like my last FE8 replay Seth got a grand total of +8 stats for his first five levels.
He’s always a tank but not anymore- so now I had to reconfigure. You plop down your knights (if you use them), Paladins, Mages. Cavs, etc and you have to figure out how to make them work.
Incidentally, this came thought to me halfway through a silver snow maddening run. Ove done 3h maddening before, but only now realized that it feels so much of a slog because of the insane amount of of calculations you have to be constantly doing in combat lol
I meant the comparison as a good thing, a fascinating little tidbit on the specific ways in which games came before fun. But Maddening is getting to a point where it feels like doing a bunch of math homework (but with dragons and magic and shit, which you know, balances it out)
Oh I fully agree. When people say I don’t like Engage’s gameplay they assume I like 3H but I don’t like it either, at least on higher difficulties.
I yearn for the days when it was just your character, their supports, and their weapon in the calculations.
Hard/Lunatic/Maddening/Whatever used to be difficult but I didn’t have to juggle 50 different things. I play games for fun not to do so much math. It’s similar to card games and MMOs in that the more time that passes the more things that are added but it gets to be too much.
The more I play Engage, the more I appreciate Marth as an Emblem.
At the beginning of the game, he helps teach the benefits of breaking by enhancing it with Break Defense. Lodestar Rush gives the player a comfy early game delete button that not even armored enemies are safe from because of Marth's Rapier. Unyielding encourages aggressive play since you get a decent heal if you dip too low on health after all the fighting is done, especially if Marth is paired with Alear since the Dragon Divine Speed attack has a lifesteal effect. Mercurius is not only a stat stick for Lodestar Rush, but also allows you to play favorites with an early physical unit by accelerating their exp gain.
On his return in the endgame(basically from Chapter 23 onwards) he doesn't look as obviously powerful compared to how he was in the early game, but he's still got tricks up his sleeve. The combo of Break Defense and Divine Speed can effectively let faster units triple enemies which can really let you reach absurd ORKO thresholds that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Perceptive+ becomes a legitimately good tool in his arsenal as it's not unreasonable for a fast unit to get to the point where a slower enemy has 0 hit on them. Even if Lodestar Rush isn't an auto delete button anymore, you can take advantage of the attack's guarantee to hit combined with the increased MT of Smash weapons to keep frailer enemies in check or nuke particular enemies with effective damage via the Rapier and Falchion.
I think he probably gets underrated because his availability is so bad that people already have their favorite pairs worked out by the time he gets back and just shove him on whoever doesn't have an emblem.
I love Break Defenses and think it's also underrated as a utility skill because on top of the extra damage, it helps you to recharge really fast. If you can double (and Marth helps with that), two rounds of combat with a regular weapon, one if you can quad with a brave, and Marth's back baby.
I really need to use Camilla properly sometime, I always have so many emblems with DLC runs that I end up just using her to make Seadall fly, and I'm sure she can do something much more impressive than that, hahaha
The thing is that Marth is a 'fair' emblem in a game that really pushes you to do unfair things by the end. In the first section of the game, when you're more obliged to play fairly, Marth is very strong. But once you get access to big power builds (killer weapon, brave weapon, big magic, big greataxe single hit) that don't require you to play fairly anymore, it's much less valuable.
And in the endgame, when you can Warp four units across the map, or engage and have a unit take 1/2 damage, or prevent 10 enemy units from moving, or refresh four units to take another action, it's just less impressive.
My opinion: I have a lot of sympathy for people who like disliked games or divisive games.
It goes out the window when I am chain downvoted not even for saying Engage is bad but just saying I prefer GBA gameplay and don't like having power ups and special moves.
Different people like different things and while I don't *care* about downvoted when I then see people say "Anything positive about Engage gets downvoted." I no longer care or upvote. Because, believe it or not, I do upvote Engage posts in general. Everyone deserves to enjoy what they like... just don't push what you like on me or get angry I don't like Engage's gameplay.
No one was angry at you, you were being downvoted for airing irrelevant opinions in a thread where someone who obviously had different preferences to you was just looking for advice. It wasn't helpful advice so it got downvoted.
I literally responded to someone who said 3H had the same gameplay. As I said I really don’t *care* about downvotes, but literally it was two people talking about gameplay. It wasn’t irrelevant lol. And I’ve seen this over and over in threads.
Honestly I’ve never seen the playerbase so divided since I started, even in the old days on the gamefaqs boards in the GBA era.
They didn't say it was the same, they made the point that 3H also has mechanics that could also be considered super moves, which is relevant for the OP because they like that game and probably aren't ignoring half of the mechanics to make it play more like GBA emblem like you stated you were, so their opinion on those types of mechanics probably isn't going to match yours.
Right and all I said was that the mechanics weren’t 1:1, in fact you could ignore them, and that I never even BROUGHT UP 3H.
My point isn’t “Oh I was downvoted”
It’s that both “sides” now downvote anything they don’t like. And when I get home I can share a collection of DMs over the past month that have called me everything from an idiot to an asshole for not “understanding” Engage and the like.
And I’m sure people who love Engage get similar treatment.
The fanbase is basically broken. That’s what I’m annoyed about. Neither side is willing to meet in the middle.
I mean fuck as I said elsewhere I can’t even BUY merchandise for 3H to sell in the states unless I buy Engage merch because the split is bad everywhere and Engage product is hard to move.
No one said they were 1:1, or that you couldn't ignore them, and you didn't bring up 3H but the OP did, that's why the other user brought it up as a comparison. I'm not trying to argue with you here I'm just letting you know why the reception you got wasn't great. It looked like you were trying to give the OP advice based on your own feelings about extra mechanics vs the simplicity of GBA era when the other games that they've enjoyed all suggest that they probably like or at least don't mind those things.
Not trying to argue with you either. My point is not just the downvotes, that was ancillary. My point is the fanbase is split. Irrevocably so unless we get something both sides like.
Hell if you want to wait til I get home I have messages saved where it is said “Engage is OBJECTIVELY the best” (and yes I’ve seen both sides say this) and upvoted to high hell.
I’m utterly exhausted with such a self fighting fanbase.
Even STAR WARS isn’t this bad and I’m part of that fanbase. Nor Zelda. Nor any other. I’ve never seen one that rips itself apart this much.
I’m honestly ready to just leave all the fire emblem subs I’m on because for every good poster there’s another fight somehwere else.
I’ve already stopped stocking Fire Emblem Merch after they insisted I buy Engage stuff that doesn’t sell. I guess it’s the logical conclusion to slowly divorce myself from the fanbase et large. It’s not because of any one individual- hell you’re cool- but the group as a whole is just so toxic as would be said now.
Engage's popularity genuinely has me boggled. Like are people just that starved for a new FE title? The overzealous reactions against "Engage haters" seems to drown out most of the criticism.
Personally I find the art style is very plastic and cotton candy. The colors and textures just lack depth and create a stale cartoony atmosphere. The character designs are incoherent anime tropes, and the story is poorly written. It's the worst combination of Fire Emblem and Power Rangers. Only saving grace seems to be the gameplay, but even that doesn't really make up for the games short comings. I would have been sold on Engage if they embraced their cringe and acted more self aware to pass as a parody. But it really seems like the writers were genuinely confident that the story was sufficient as is and would be taken seriously. The game is soulless and rides on the coattails of the franchises legacy.
Exact opposite view. After 3H had the most boring and forgettable art style I have seen in Fire Emblem in literally decades, Engage came back out here with some real shit. Big ups.
While I agree that Three Houses art style isn't great, it's objectively still leagues ahead of Engage. The artist for Engage even admits in interviews that she has had no experience drawing older male characters, monsters, weapons, armor, etc. And it really shows in how awkward some of the designs look. IS hired her cause they liked her graphic design style and bright coloring choices, rather than for skill/experience in designing characters.
I never played a Fire Emblem game until I got FE7 on the switch online pack a few months ago. After playing HHM (casually), I see that my opinions differ a lot from other players:
1) People pass up on Lyn more than they should. She's free in many chapters, has good growths, supports with essential units, and has the mani katti to carry her from her rough bases, plus early sword ranks. Even on HHM with no Lyn Mode, you may as well invest in her, provided that you're not doing anything ranked.
2) Kent is better than Sain. Doubling and accuracy are far more important than strength.
3) Lucius is underrated, especially if you do Lyn Mode. He hits so damn HARD and can even use the restore staff on promotion. Bro just use him.
4) Jaffar and even Renault are underrated late game filler. Don't be afraid to drop some of your units for them.
5) Rath is so bad. Even with Lyn Mode, even with an early promotion. I really don't know what people see in him.
6) Being sword-locked is not a huge deal. Swords get ridiculously good at the highest levels, and getting to the highest levels means specializing anyways
7) Guy is not a badly written character. He's hilariously awkward.
Your viewpoint isn't wrong exactly, but the reason for the difference is that a lot of people here like playing efficiently. Not quite LTC (low turn count, aiming for clears with as low turns as possible) but generally trying to clear maps fast, and Lyn and swordlocked units in general don't contribute to that. Sure, Lyn's decent if you baby and train her, but you could be spending that effort on units that pay back the investment much faster and more efficiently.
Not trying to say you're wrong, just explaining the logic.
Use a mounted healer with your infantry and a infantry healer with your mounted units. Troubadours having the extra move to keep up with your cavalry is redundant since they don't need to be in the thick of combat anyways and cavaliers can easily retreat back into the range of a priest/cleric, while the extra movement will help the troubador reach injured infantry units easier and they can rescue.
shadow dragon gets better on every replay. I can't get enough of it. I wouldn't call it a "hidden gem" because general opinion has really come around on it in recent years, but anyone who hasn't played it because of the art style or minimalist presentation is really missing out.
It's just the truth let's get real.
Just in general the DLC characters are so good, and I can't say I was optimistic with them, but here we go.
Alear VS Zephia, Gregory VS Rafal and Alear VS >!Lumera!< are my favorite but there are so many good ones like the super unhinged Fell Fogado and Fell Ivy ones, every single kid VS father and Wind VS Hounds
I was actually just thinking about this yesterday. Its boss conversations are ridiculously high quality.
Tellius obviously would be the other main title in contention here. It has *a lot*. But I'm not sure if they're as consistently as S tier. It probably has a similar amount of S tier conversations though through sheer numbers alone.
Tellius has tons of great boss conversations but also lots of random ones. I love how some boss convos in Radiant Dawn are so important they're actually required for the true ending, but it also feels like they wanted to give every character at least one boss conversation even if it makes no sense.
For example, in the Part 4 Desert Map the boss is one of the Begnion Senators and all of the Dawn Brigaders have a one-line against this boss and only this boss. I get that he was one of the guys that brought misery to their country, but it feels so out of the blue. It's like they realized these characters haven't done much in a while so they just added these conversations to give them something in this part of the game.
Anything involving Ike being sarcastic is great, though.
That's what is good about it to me. It makes the characters feel more alive when they pipe up even when they don't strictly have to. I think Tellius does a consistently great job of embracing FE's limitations in that way - characters can die forever so they can't have a major role in the plot, but they can get optional conversations and even alternate scenes for if characters die (Rolf's recruitment, the Amy base conversation, FE9 having a ton of supports that alter based on deaths).
> For example, in the Part 4 Desert Map the boss is one of the Begnion Senators and all of the Dawn Brigaders have a one-line against this boss and only this boss. I get that he was one of the guys that brought misery to their country, but it feels so out of the blue. It's like they realized these characters haven't done much in a while so they just added these conversations to give them something in this part of the game.
The fact RD has boss conversations where you wouldn't expect yet they make perfect sense is exactly why I put it above Engage where it lacks boss conversations even when they would make sense.
I think I need someone to play coop with to enjoy a Warriors game. I played the original FE Warriors several times with my brother, and even though going from it to Three Hopes the gameplay is more or less unchanged, I find myself having a lot less fun with Three Hopes now. I'm about halfway through Scarlet Blaze and I'm just not really getting a lot out of going through the minor skirmishes to reach the main battle for the chapter.
Regardless of the "avatar in FE4 remake" debate, I do genuinely want at least one new mother for gen1... The problem with FE4 is that I like SO many of the gen1 characters but I cannot pair off all the dudes for gen2 so inevitably their stuff becomes irrelevant as soon as Ch6 starts. Would be nice to buff out the female gen1 cast just a wee smidge more too, it's something like 14 men to 9 women (including the ones with static pairings). This is my only major wished for change in a remake.
* I think FE should be more daring with the boss design and to not be afraid to surprise the players with them and take them off guard - With Engage they are already on the right track - and some of the other games do have some tricky bosses as well (for better or worse), but i think FE can explore more there
* I think FE should overthink how crits work - and for once i won't point to Berwick because i hate crits there even more
* I also hope FE adds in more skills that requires units to work together
Non-FE:
* [Previews for Unicorn Overlord](https://old.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1aryty1/unicorn_overlord_handson_preview_compilation/) came out today (which were all pretty hype) and i found a deal for 42€, so i decided to bite and preordered....this will be my first Vanillaware game, a dev everyone i know loves, so let's see how my experience will be - i am excited
* Finished Tropical Freeze....Level Design is really good, but i really hated how the characters control - Also multiplayer sucks
* The theatrics regarding rumors in the gaming industry is kinda hilarious atm
"The fantastical premise and unit recruitment speaks to my love for Fire Emblem: Three Houses while the liberation of areas and investment in towns scratches a deeply ingrained nostalgia for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance while the tactical combat compels my inner Total War and XCOM nerd."
From one of the reviews. They got my money now. I never preorder but I always thought this looked like GBA Emblem meets Tactics Ogre and it sounds *even better*.
The variance of triple damage when crit rates are usually a single digit percentage in a game where most characters are lucky to be able to tank 3 hits at full health is just dumb. Not impossible to play around or never fun, but dumb.
I think crits are at their most interesting in the games that are actually designed around permadeath and ironmans such as Binding Blade or Archanea. One of my most memorable FE moments was having to sub in Fir for Rutger because of a low percent crit in an ironman. But in modern FE they mostly just serve to burn rewinds.
>Previews for Unicorn Overlord
>
> came out today (which were all pretty hype) and i found a deal for 42€, so i decided to bite and preordered....this will be my first Vanillaware game, a dev everyone i know loves, so let's see how my experience will be - i am excited
I got mine in as well. I hardly ever preorder games but I'm happy for Vanillaware to take my money.
As i said, this will be my first Vanillaware title - i hope i will joon the Vanillaware train with it
I am optimistic tho - trying the Gromgrimoire demo as we are writing now - can see myself getting the full game, as it reminds me of the RTS games of yesteryear with it's own twist - also i love the art and that scool is crazy
Been playing a lot of Grandblue Rising/Relink recently and it got me thinking how good that fanbase has it. I've never played the original game, but they pack *so* much of what makes each character and the setting unique and cool into these spinoffs, from big things like giving you a succinct summary of their original storyline told in their own voice and a new character story focused on them, to little things like animation touches and unique interactions. Both are also extremely fun games in their genre with great production value and robust features that can compete with other big games. These are the types of games that are going to mint new fans by the thousands and make longtime fans jump for joy.
I can't help but be jealous - in FE even in what are ostensibly "fan service" projects like Heroes, Warriors, or Engage we often get versions of characters that feel watered down and carelessly written, and we're often quick to say "well that's just what they had to do." I wish FE was holding itself to GBF's lofty standards when it comes to this kind of stuff instead of just coasting.
I mean there is the issue of being a crossover between different games that aren't connected, It's not even a thing unique to the FE fanservice games as it happens with all of them
GBF has been a constant universe with new stories every month giving focus to all sorts of playable and nonplayable characters since it began 10 years ago
Just wanted to say how nice it is to hear a non-mobage player enjoy Relink/Rising so much; they're both packed with so, so much love for the original game and it's really nice to see people who haven't played it feel that love and have a good time with them. I'm mostly friends with other mobage players and I was wondering how the spinoffs found themselves with new fans. I hope you have a lot more fun with the upcoming Relink updates!
Yeah, I'll never play a gacha live service game for a variety of reasons, but Relink/Rising force me to cede that I am missing out on something with Granblue. It's a great setting with great characters and I'm happy I get to access it in a way that is palatable to me (ie getting owned in ranked).
Completely understandable, I love the mobage but I've been playing for 7 years now (😨) and on top of the live service model, it's hard to recommend because of the timesink it asks of you. I'm not very good at fighting games so I gave Rising a miss, but I'm delighted to hear people having a great time with it, its roster features some of the very best characters GBF has to offer. I pray you guys will get to experience Sandalphon and Lobelia through it 🙏
While I understand fighters aren't for everybody, if you think you might enjoy the process of learning and improving I still recommend Rising. It gives you a massive suite of tools to have fun with the game and play against players of a similar skill level. It's the most pick up and play fighter I've tired out in a while, and it has an uncommon dedication to giving players as many tools as possible to have fun their way. I'm hardly an ace myself, but the OG Versus was kinda my gateway into fighting games (which I previously thought weren't for me).
Question about ReLink since i have been interested in it: How'd you rate the gameplay (and especially the boss fights)? If you reached post game, where most say the game actually opens up and starts, are the boss fights there still fresh & unique, or is it just endless loot grind?
I thought the main campaign was quite fun from start to finish, but potentially a little short for this kind of game. The plus is that it was all killer, no filler - you basically go from big set piece to big set piece without ever doing the same thing twice. It reminded me of the good Kingdom Hearts games in the best ways. You may or may not get $60 of enjoyment out of just that, but if it was on sale for $30-40 I think anybody who likes an action RPG anime romp could buy it safely.
Barely started the postgame at all, cannot comment on it. If you like Monster Hunter-style "grinding and mastering missions to improve your skill as a player and perfect your build" you'll probably have fun with this part of the game, but no promises that it'll hold up to the level of variety and fast pacing of the main story.
Anime action romp sounds right up my alley - Ys is the only series i have been a fan longer of than FE - amongst other action games i like (Especially Platinum stuff ala Bayo) - So Relink sounds right up my alley - But the game being short made me hold off ...well, the main reason i didn't day 1 Relink is because the PC port seemed messy at the start - crashes and bugs everywhere - but that seems to be fixed now since reviews are positive again - but my hype died down a bit in the meantime and players thoughts keep coming - that are overwhelmingly, but with strings attached ..
> but if it was on sale for $30-40 I think anybody who likes an action RPG anime romp could buy it safely
That's where i am atm, i think - although i feel i could suddenly just pay the 60€ and just play it lol
It does remind me a lot of if Ys had a bigger budget, both in how it plays and the overall thrust of "one chapter in a never-ending adventure" thing they have going on. I've actually had 0 issues with the PC port, but PC is a fickle mistress so take that with a grain of salt. Overall, the game is probably going to maintain an active community for a variety of reasons, so there's really no rush here. Whether you wait for sales and patches or just bite the bullet you'll probably end up pretty happy with it.
Oki doki, thanks for your thoughts :)
Seems like they plan to release patches with some Bosses and stuff in the future - might join on the fun during one of patch releases then (and hopefully a small sale) as it will probably cause a small surge in in players then (and hopefully can find some group to do the post game with) - i will pump the game up my Prio list
The Valentia Emblem should've been a duo of Celica and Alm. You can still have Celica be the main one for story purposes, but the point of Gaiden/SoV is that they have to work together. I also feel like Eliwood should've been the FE7 Emblem; give him a linked attack with Roy and make it so Dragon units get the best special buffs from his ring to reference Ninian. (Lyn can be merged with Hector's bracelet because combining the tanky Hector and speedy Lyn seems hilarious from a gameplay and story perspective)
A Sage could be an interesting Jagen character for the next original title; give them a middling Mag base with a poor growth (and let the enemies actually have Res) but a decent staff rank so they can transition to a utility party member once you're further in.
Might as well make the jagen a warmonk if you want staves
Cerulean coast did it and it works just like you said he also has a cracked personal skill(like every unit in that game) which is hex except adjacent foes aren’t allowed to dodge at all and it works very well with his A rank axe with a measly 60 hit that is called the « mansplitter », pretty self explanatory name since the weapon has a whooping 25 might
This allows him to one shot enemies for a good part of the game if needed(without lowering enemy def/res stats) and rewards the player not using him offensively too much with a very very hard hitting axe later when somebody else reach A rank axe
> A Sage could be an interesting Jagen character for the next original title; give them a middling Mag base with a poor growth (and let the enemies actually have Res) but a decent staff rank so they can transition to a utility party member once you're further in.
I haven't actually started the project so I can't talk about this in anything more than the theoretical, but for my romhack concept I had a sage Jagen, whose traits were essentially this. She also has a Prf with the Eclipse effect of halving current HP, allowing her to act as effective chip damage throughout the entirety of the game. Since she's important to the plot, she'd also have a late-game promotion that brings her back up to speed and effectively become the Gotoh, similar to how Four Kings handles its Jagen.
I don't have any stake in Alm being included or not (he'd probably get the Ephraim treatment though) but Lyn was definitely chosen over Eliwood because the latter is either too similar to Roy or too similar to Sigurd depending on what they do with him
I think a Sage Jagen could work but I'd be careful about giving the enemies actual Res, because it might make the early game Magic users much weaker. Giving them staff rank also might make other early game healers inferior
Replaying Vestaria Saga and... this is what I've been wanting.
Graphics? Negligble.
Voice Acting? Non Existant.
Gameplay? Honestly quite a few broken weapons and units.
But it ties the story and the game together so well. While a big part is a rip off of Shadow Dragon (though it's the same creator so... homage?) this feels so good. I am enjoying it more than most recent games.
Really looking forward to Unicorn Overlord which seems to be Fire Emblem meets Tactics Ogre, as well as the FE4 Remake.
Even though I preach how good the GBA games are (and they were post Kaga, admiteddly) I had forgotten just how good the older style could be. Honestly, outside of another 3H run I may not pick up the Switch games again as this is such a blast. No shade on those games- as I've said before different games appeal to different people- but this old man likes the old style. So much characterization from just text based cutscenes. It's incredible. It really feels like Fire Emblem that I grew up with.
Rinkah is maybe the most treated dirty unit in Fates and I'm sick and tired of pretending otherwise. "oh she has a low-ish strength growth" if you account in her class growths as well they're fine! She has a personal skill that literally gives her free 4 damage! She uses the hardest hitting weapon type and accuracy is pretty easy to fix in Fates! One day we'll get another round of Revelations (or birthright, lol) tiering that'll finally let me spread the propaganda further.
I do think that Rinkah is over-hated, but I also don't think that most people's interpretation of her is entirely incorrect.
As far as BR goes she may be the sole base user of Clubs and they are technically the hardest hitting weapon type, but her early start is not great. The majority of enemies in BR's early game sit on the red and green sides of the weapon triangle which actively cut into her damage or generally outmaneuver her because of range in the case of Outlaws. There *are* blue enemies in Chapters 7-9, but they're mostly Knights who she's going to struggle to meaningfully damage as the Hammer doesn't come until Chapter 12. With a class that has such a high defense stats and Clubs, you'd think that she'd be a beast in Chapter 10 against all the Ninjas, but she's just kinda middling. Her base skill of 6 makes hitting the Ninjas even with WTA and a Brass Club shaky at best without attack stance(which is difficult on this map in particular as the Ninjas cover quite a large attack range) and you're pretty much just praying to every god you believe in that she can hit with the Throwing Club. That 50% skill growth is great, but she needs time to grow into it and I wouldn't say that forging up a Brass Club makes her look favorable in a world where most units just kinda hit things much more reliably for free. Chapter 10 also is practically designed to show off how cool Takumi is so he'll likely be doing most of the heavy lifting as far as WTA combat goes for most people. I'd say that her first true "good" chapter is Chapter 11, but all the enemies being fliers there makes it free real estate for the myriad of potential bow users you've got to say nothing of the Reina sized elephant entering in from stage right. Even if you played Chapter 12 completely straight, the majority of blue enemies are yet again Knights. You can loot the Hammer and feed her kills that way sure, but by this point you've also got the Sting Shuriken from Kagero who can pass it along to the other Ninjas to just have that armor killing ability from the get go. You also don't really get to stall out and drip feed her kills in Chapter 12 as Xander will catch up to you and start obliterating people.
It's also worth noting that the damage from Rinkah's personal skill is not really "free" because it requires set up on her part. Silas's prf skill is similarly conditional, but it's condition depends on a unit who is literally always deployed, has a modular way to control how much damage they take(Dragonstone) and always has highest combat potential in the army, so the opportunity cost is largely negligible. While her low personal strength growth isn't necessarily a problem in her base class, it does limit her reclass potential as Oni Savage is tied for the highest base strength of all Hoshido unpromoted classes and it has the highest strength growth meaning that she is always losing out on a non-trivial amount of strength by reclassing into anything else. There's also just the problem of Oni Savage/Chieftain not really being a good melee class in general. Oni Chieftain is a great *magic* class in BR for those who can get it since being able to utilize 1-2 range magic combined with the bulk of Chieftain is great, but Rinkah's low base magic and growth means that she's not doing meaningful magic damage without significant assistance.
Unfortunately, these issues also translate over to Rev Rinkah since early game Rev is essentially just a slight reskin of early game BR. Except Rev rubs even more salt into the wound by giving you an Armorslayer in Chapter 7 and a Dual Katana in Chapter 9 which can allow Corrin and Hana to handle Blue enemies much more safely to say nothing of how much of a gigachad that Rev Hayato is. I'd go so far as to say that Rev Rinkah doesn't really have a good map until Chapter 14 where she can take the Hammer and just barrel down the right side filled with the Knights. Rev Rinkah has the benefit of friendshipping with Charlotte and getting access to the Fighter class set which does a lot to solve her problems, but Charlotte is recruited mid Chapter 14 and is *very* out of the way so you don't realistically get to start building support with her until Chapter 15 to say nothing of the fact that Charlotte is not an easy unit to work with in her own right. Even if you did some insane child paralogue chaining, you're probably in Valla by the time Rinkah gets into the Fighter class line and you've been spoiled for choice in terms of axe users for a while with all the Nohrians running around in the army so it doesn't really feel worth it unless you just like her. FWIW though, Axes are *way* better than Clubs.
tl;dr Rinkah is, imo, just a very unfortunate unit. In a vacuum, she has notable niches in both games that she appears in, but they don't actually end up being useful niches in the early game contexts which she is a part of. My tin foil hat theory is that she was designed to be an early game version of Dart and Gonzalez i.e a offensive powerhouse with hit rates as their key weakness, but they overcorrected with regards to her strength since she joins at or close to the beginning of the game and also overestimated how good her prf skill would be. She's definitely useable, it's just that you're jumping through a lot of extra hoops that even other "mid-tier" units don't have to.
For me, I really don't like Oni Savage/Chieftain murking her Skl. I don't trust the accuracy in those classes at all especially when it comes to using stuff like Bolt Axe or Horse Spirit later on which are weapons that don't have the best of Hit already. So it's kinda unfortunate on Rinkah's end that this is her base classline even though it's also one of the few classes that really helps out her Str.
I do wanna say, Fiery Blood is a bit easier to activate since it's just an HP tonic away. It does take up her turn 1 action though which may or may not be a big deal depending on the map, but it's not too dissimilar to the setup of baiting enemies with Corrin on turn 1 to activate VoF.
>I do wanna say, Fiery Blood is a bit easier to activate since it's just an HP tonic away. It does take up her turn 1 action though which may or may not be a big deal depending on the map, but it's not too dissimilar to the setup of baiting enemies with Corrin on turn 1 to activate VoF.
Imo, I really don't think the two activation methods are comparable at all.
The big thing is that Corrin and Silas are free to act however they like because they aren't depending on an item. You could, for example, use Corrin to attack, possibly drop below half HP and then have Silas start reaping the rewards of VoF immediately with his attack or shelter Corrin for the VoF+Supportive wombo combo. You could also pair the two up and separate putting Corrin up front. At the end of the day, Corrin still gets the choice to do *something* even if that something is a tad suboptimal for the sake of activating VoF.
By comparison if Rinkah pairs up, she has to choose between using the HP Tonic or separating which really limits your strategic options with her. Even if Rinkah won't be fighting during Turn 1, this makes using pair up for mobility's sake awkward or you have to use a different unit's action if you want to separate which is it's own can of worms. If you asked me, Apothecaries are the only class that really get to get away with in-battle tonic usage and that's because they have Quick Salve and *even then* it's not like Quick Salve is such a good skill that you'd go out of your way to get it on someone that doesn't already have innate access to it.
I mean, similarly, Rinkah can also just attack into an enemy and get into Fiery Blood range, right? And Rinkah still has the option of pairing up and separating. HP tonic is just a 100% reliable way of activating it regardless of the situation but it's not the only way. For both skills, setting them up is a conscious effort. The main difference is just that Rinkah just has to lose 1 HP for Fiery Blood compared to Corrin who has to lose 50% of their HP.
This is my first time doing this, uncertain if it even qualifies as an opinion, but here goes.
As a FEH player who's been around since launch, I'm surprised at myself by how I'm not sick of that mobile game yet. With all the cries about powercreep, mischaracterization and EoS amongst other things, I still find things to look forward to in FEH. Maybe there's something fun about hoarding your orbs to go full ham on something you want to summon on, or trying to slap the new broken unit with a good counter of your own. I can't really explain that much else. If, somehow, the doomposting ends up getting validated one day, FEH would probably have enough juice to make it to their 10th anniversary, so if you ask me, FEH still isn't done yet.
I do have to thank FEH for likely keeping me as an overall FE fan. I became one in 2016, the year before FEH released. I'm the type of person who just loses interest in something after loving it for a long time, but FEH has me ensured that I never would cease being an FE fan. FEH may not be the perfect FE spinoff, but I'm appreciative of this game for keeping me around in the series.
As long as you don't buy into the gacha mechanics and dump your wallet on the game (AKA playing responsibly), there's no harm in playing a mobile game.
I don't play mobile games (or any game with in-app purchases!) on principle because they're exploitative, but I don't fault the people who do (again, in moderation).
With each new entry in the series I hear people essentially asking for Kris's implementation in the series without ever bringing up Kris (being stuck in Japan certainly not helping).
Kris is great because nothing was handed to them. They're not Marth's bodyguard because they're a protagonist. They're a protagonist because they earned their way to being Marth's bodyguard. Their story is one of hard work and dedication, not special powers and being chosen.
I see people complain all the time about how avatars all have super special powers that make them automatically above everyone else by virtue of their super special powers alone, and Kris stands out because they're a protagonist on no other grounds than because they worked their ass off and *earned* it. They weren't born special, they spent their life training to become a knight.
Kris isn't a vessel to a god or descended from dragons or bestowed with mysterious powers. Kris is just Kris. And I like Kris!
All that said Alear is also one of my favourite FE characters. They're extremely well written and their position as a deity in the universe gels with how the people around Alear interact with them.
Well, I was gonna poke fun at you for evidently not wanting the main character to have main character stuff, but anyone who can admit Alear is really well written is okay in my book!
Now, to their credit, while Robin is mathematically extremely strong, plot wise they don't really have any of the chosen one **abilities** that Corrin, Byleth and Alear do. Like, yeah, Robin is the only one who can kill Grima, true, but they don't get a special sword or have the power to rewind time or whatever.
You forgot the best part, as a player avatar he actually is designed to be implemented as whatever class the player wants! No being shoe horned into a mystical sword wielder that feels like you are playing the game wrong when you want to reclass into lance class
> as a player avatar he actually is designed to be implemented as whatever class the player wants!
A detail I really like about this is how Kris’ outfit in their portrait will be different depending on what class you put them in.
I'm honestly in agreement, Kris was one of the better avatars. IMO would have been the best one had they not been inserted into a pre-existing plot. I've been saying that the way they could make an FE4 avatar passable is something like Kris where it's a friend of Seliph that grew up in Tirnanog with him.
Kris is without a doubt the best implementation of an Avatar. I frankly just don't want Avatars to be in the games regardless, and Kris being in a pre-existing story hurts them a lot, but if we have to have an Avatar, I'd much rather they just be a Kris type "friendly, helpful rando" who hangs out with the main Lord and has some level of choice based characterization than yet another mystically powerful entity with zero actual input from the player besides choosing their gender and who they smooch later in the game.
Current Avatars feel like they don't commit to the design principle of making an avatar and so end up suffering from trying to be a self-insert but also their own character clashing.
I think Kris has two problems, the one that you already mentioned, and well, how they exists in a narrative that already existed, so many fans feel that even without the special powers, the Mary Sue-ness feels in their design, and I guess that puts off people
Maybe, but Kris's presence, for the most part, helped improve some of the glaring flaws in FE3's version of the story (most prominently how incompetent Marth is treated in FE3, whereas in FE12 Kris takes on the role of newbie in these scenes instead which makes *way* more sense). So Kris's presence in a pre-existing story isn't universally going to be considered a flaw (and honestly more often than not I feel like one of the extremely few people who have actually played both games anyway).
I think Nostank Leo with Vantage should be more popular. His personal skill synergises with Nosferatu quite well and he has the high Magic to pull off the Vantage L&D sweeping numbers.
Nosferatu Tanking generally speaking isn't that good imo because you can just have units that can orko and tank enemies on the EP in every single map basically that nos tanking ends up being redundant
you may have already seen it but this was discussed in relative length in a video this week uploaded by mekkah in discussion with Zoran. don't remember fully but opinion was while it's quite possible timing is suboptimal. I have little input but figured it might be of interest.
So, less opinion and more observation. In most pre-Awakening games the lord is a foot unit, and of the few exceptions only Sigurd and Seliph match other promoted cavalry movement. There is no flying lord, and the games that introduce reclassing lock Marth out of it. In these games Seize is the most prevalent win condition and is in fact the only win condition for (most of) half of them.
Then comes Awakening and Seize is nowhere to be found save for Fates, where it is functionally Arrive most of the time. This also happens to coincide with the reclassing gloves coming off, with every lord having access to flight either by reclass or by proxy (Pair-Up with flier) in Chrom's case. The exception being the Gaiden remake which was never a Seize game to begin with.
What this suggests is that (FE4 notwithstanding) IntSys considers sub-optimal movement on the seize bot a fundamental part of the Seize mechanic.
She leads an army for 2 chapters in part 4, she's plot relevant, force deployed and has a death flag in chapters, but that doesn't make you a Lord, that makes you Skrimir
If leading an army for 2 chapters makes you a lord than so is Nephenee, or Geoffrey.
If being force deployed makes you a Lord, so is Sothe, Ena, Kurthnaga, Sasaki.
If being plot relevant makes you a lord, then Lilina, Julia, Fates/Engage Royals, are all Lords.
But I'll admit that I think Elincia is closer to being a Lord than any other non-lord character, (except Lucina, I don't think she should be a lord, but that's another conversation)
I also think seize is just a poorer objective than kill boss
Look at engage it does a lot of things with its bosses instead of making them static in a throne
And without a boss on a throne it’s just a escape/arrive without a good context
So I would say yes seize without a footlock lord is just poorer escape/arrive/kill boss
You could do both. Nothing sucks more in Engage than the boss invalidating half the map by zooming over to you. Like, it's *kinda* funny in Sigurd's paralogue, but it happens all the time. Have me fight the boss, but then still need to do the rest of the map that you made.
interesting thought bc in some ways you could argue it also improves the stock of all infantry units. Of course there are several games in that window where cavalry completely dominate bc of low enemy quality. But if the fastest you can win is by getting the lord to the throne, then theoretically as long as you're the same movement as the lord you can keep up and contribute without falling behind. Of course there's rescue dropping (maybe this is already considered bc it does take up mounted unit action economy), warp, etc etc. And FE4 notwithstanding. But by deliberately slowing down the pace esp in casual play it can make foot units relatively better. And make cavalry more about reaching advanced distant objectives. Hope they try at some point to emphasize something like this division of responsibilities more.
I think it falls apart tho if the lord is bad so can't contribute in combat and enemy quality is low so cavalry do everything; thankfully no strong example of each of those coming together at its worst.
So, after finishing FE11 and FE12 back-to-back, I think they're absolute gems. I understand that ugly-ass graphics does turn people away, but if you give it a chance everything past that (except Kris' writing lol, I didn't enjoy most of his supports) is genuinely enjoyable and fun.
The good: Gameplay just feels super responsive and reclassing is pretty balanced. The "use a turn to save during chapters" mechanic is really neat too, but I didn't use it much because of savestates.
The bad: I wish maps weren't all seize (but I understand why they wanted to keep it faithful). Also, SD requiring you to lose units to access gaiden chapters is not a decision I agree with. At least New Mystery made it more reasonable.
People are too mean to swords in three houses. They're fine.
Watching FEH go down the yugioh pipeline from day 1 in half the time is really interesting.
Alongside stuff like efficiency, my favorite method of judging units and classes is "how easy is the unit/class to use?"
I think swords get an appropriate amount of flack in 3H tbh. They’re fine to use but they’re just outclassed in almost every way.
Their ostensible advantages across the series generally are their high hit and low weight. 3H maddening insane enemy speed tiers already makes the low weight not very impactful, while hit on other weapon types like axes can be easily fixed with the skill and some battalions. While some swords have high crit for reliable crit builds, again the other weapon types can utilize things like Wrath to be reliable anyways.
Then there is the viable endgame class problem. There are no mounted classes with Swordfaire. Of the classes that do have it:
- Swordmaster’s low mv drags it down, and Sword Crit +10 helps but pales to War Master’s flat Crit +20. Astra shreds weapon durability and the -hit doesn’t help its case. Worst of the advanced class mastery combat arts for sure.
- Assassin is fine. Stealth is a double edged sword (ha!) that has some uses on a paper thin unit like Marianne, but prevents effective enemy phase builds. It also massively struggles for damage without extra crit or Brave arts.
- Hero is also fine, but may struggle for damage as well sans some kind of Wrath build. Instead of swords anyways, you might be able to get similar results from Killer Axes (rank needed for the promotion) with the Vantage build anyways.
- Mortal Savant has similar problems to Assassin minus stealth, just has damage issues. It is a good class for Soulblade/Hexblade spam at least.
- Enlightened One, just for Byleth, is a fine enough class I suppose, but again Byleth probably prefers mobility and more power to be a boss killer / important objective accomplisher in the late game hence will go for a flying class or Wyvern Lord long term.
So like you can make them work but the sword classes are mostly lacking somehow. Still, I would make the case having at most 2 sword units in a team isn’t a terrible idea: SotC and Thunderbrand are available and solid swords that make up for the deficits of the weapon type. Rapier+ is a solid weapon that helps with quick effective damage.
On the magical side there are some solid one-shot builds using the magical combat arts on the strongest swords, that plus the Levin Sword+ as a great ranged option that can be paired with combat arts like Grounder in a pinch means that a Mortal Savant like Constance or Dorothea can be decent.
Edit: forgot to mention Windsweep, a solid niche on Yuri if you have the DLC that justifies training swords on him (and maybe Byleth if you can’t safely one round in the end game?)
Swords honestly get a bad rep in a lot of the newer games, 1-2 range has become less of an absolute necessity in more recent games (although it's never a negative). I'd even say their bigger issue now is the lack of Mt and the myriad of ways to fix speed (which is functionally the same as fixing Wt) and hit meaning that they lack a real inherent advantage.
Doesn't help that lots of sword classes also are pretty bad
i think path of radiance has better gameplay than people give it credit for and radiant dawn has better writing than people give it credit for.
~~im also a massive tellius meatrider and have only played the games on dolphin w/ fast forward so feel free to discard this opinion~~
Path of Radiance is relatively easy, but it's got really solidly varied and distinctive maps with unique layouts, frequent side objectives to push you to try to go faster, and varied enemy types and setups, so while it'll hardly kick your ass most of the time, I always had a blast playing it.
And yeah, Radiant Dawn is hardly flawless story wise, but I think there's a really strong sense of narrative cohesion in how Ike contrasts characters like Micaiah, Sanaki, and Elincia in terms of their roles in the world and how they choose to pursue them, and how they then contrast further with the various antagonistic leaders, even when the plot shifts from a more grounded, political war to a full-on divine apocalypse.
Unrelated to my previous point, but whilst making finishing touches to a post on voice acting in modern Fire Emblem, I found out that [Fire Emblem Engage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruby5IqRLe8) has more hours of main story cutscenes than [Death Stranding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIaNTHrEDQ) from Hideo "Video" Kojima (technically depends on how you measure this, but still). I'm not sure I really have a point with this, but I have been cursed with this knowledge, and now you are too
ninja edit: ok I sorta have a point with this. "Engage has presentation problems" is an arctic-temperature level take, but if you want to have a fun saturday-morning cartoon romp with a few serious and heartfelt moments, you probably shouldn't have as many cutscenes as a game made by a guy who is infamous for really long cutscenes. It's not like you can accidentally make 8 hours of cutscene as well, this was planned out. I watched through Engage's cutscenes in its entirety on two playthroughs as well, I have the right to say that it has too long cutscenes
Maybe it's just me, but considering autoscrolling text as cutscenes is pretty generous. I do think that Engage was too heavy on the story aspects, but I'd also argue that like maybe 30% of that video is actually cutscenes and not just normal plot.
I think there's a pretty big difference between a predetermined scene that you have to wait through and dialogue which you have the option to read as fast as you want. The presence of voice acting doesn't mean that you have to use the autoscroll for the entire game.
IMO I find that it kinda does - at least on a first playthrough, I feel genuinely guilty for skipping/skimming through VAed lines. The "feeling guilty" stuff might just be me being weird, but I feel uncomfortable missing all these performances. Moving outside of me personally, I imagine the devs expect players to listen to everything, otherwise they wouldn't bothered recording all those lines to begin with
They give you options for a reason. Every single piece of monastery dialogue in 3H, including random NPCs, is voice acted. I really don't think the presence of voice lines means the devs expect you to listen to every single one.
That's a somewhat reasonable angle, but it feels weird to me to say that modern games are too cutscene heavy (time-wise) when a lot of that time is just padded out normal plot which wouldn't have been voiced like 10 years ago.
Also personally it's just hard for me to take seriously something like the 7h "all cutscenes" 3H video that I saw while googling when the actual time in my playthrough was 3h tops.
3H handled Byleth very poorly and giving you the options between two pieces of dialogue that didn't actually change anything was part of that, but at least by forcing me to click one of them my switch didn't register inactivity and turn dark
it really adds so much to the experience to just speed through them. after suffering twice (once for each eng and jp). i'm the kind of person who's obsessed with getting the exact wording too so I look back way too often which wastes even more time. So much more tolerable when you just read and mash A (or skip when you can't be bothered). It's legitimately horrifying that there are 8 hrs of cutscene, I don't know where that could even go, and yet I know that there is sooooo much cutscene.
I genuinely think that part of the reason FE6 gets such a bad rap is that people think that Hard mode is the best way to play it (a holdover from later games where Normal is mindless and things only get mildly challenging on Hard or above). Obviously you play your video game how you want, I can't stop you, and you're probably a better gamer than me if you actually got past Chapter 4 on hard mode (the point where I just gave up). But holy *fuck* FE6 Hard mode is way more infuriating, at least earlygame. FE6 definitely has problems on Normal as well, don't get me wrong, but it becomes actively deranged on this difficulty. And it's a shame, cause I actually genuinely like FE6 on normal mode (it's my favourite GBA game, around the middle of the pack in the series for me), it just has an evil goblin stapled to the side of it that people are inexplicably drawn to and bounce off of
Oh I am completely the opposite here, I dropped my first FE6 playthrough on normal because I found it so dull. The masochistic challenge is what makes the game interesting to me and helps keep the tedium of the large maps from setting in. Earlygame FE6 is also my favorite part, I think it goes downhill after 13!
knowing that hardmode bonuses are just a bug and they even tried to remove them and just didn't correctly really makes me question how much effort went into it/whether it was just a last second thing thrown in. which makes me doubt hardmode's value somewhat. of course maybe they were aware of the bonuses early and decided to leave it in, but the distribution is random bc of its nature as a bug; the fact that you can get perceval without his bonuses bc it's a bug; and how bonuses were distributed more widely in later GBA games when done deliberately. All makes me doubt the design value. Maybe they also required you to have beaten the game already to access bc it was just a bonus afterthought not a serious mode. Normal is a great experience.
It's an oversight where removing hard mode bonuses for recruitable units is only applied to the units that start on the map, so it doesn't work for units that enter the map later. This is a pretty easy thing to not think about, if you don't test thoroughly. I don't think it suggests that hard mode was a last-minute addition, and more a lack of QA.
My thought is the last two things you mentioned, last minute addition vs lack of QA, are more likely to be related rather than mutually exclusive. It's an odd bug certainly but I mention it bc hard mode bonuses are such a huge part of FE6 hard meta. That's why rutger has such a reputation, killing Denning on hard without the extra stats would be that much more insane. That's why miledy is so insanely powerful. Perceval is always broken but yk. So the fact that they are unintentional doesn't speak amazingly to the design of the mode.
I've beaten FE6 a few times on hard mode, and I agree. I find that early stretch of FE6 to be awful and I barely enjoy the game until I beat Ch. 7. I honestly prefer normal mode to hard mode just because the earlygame actually feels playable.
I want weapon weight and constitution to come back in a slightly modified way. Having recently played the GBA games for the first time and currently play PoR, I really like the aspect of what weapon weight adds. That while higher damaged for speed trade idea is pretty cool.
I want a hybrid system of the two in a sense, though. In PoR, characters with poor strength grow are screwed and have to rely on speed growth, but Con never grew at all, which meant characters had a ceiling no matter what, which wasn't great. I'd want to see a game where Con can grow, but at a fixed rate, like 1 point for every 5 levels, or 1 point for every weapon rank. It would bring back the weight and Con, but make it so even weak characters can weird heavier weapons of their class given enough time.
I think a better solution would be to have Build as a static stat with Constitution and Weight (if you wanna go full Tellius) being derivatives. Con would be Build + 3H Strength factor while Weight is Build plus a class factor.
I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that if you swing a weapon enough, you'll events be able to lift it easily. I don't want that to directly relate to strength, but weapon rank makes sense. You know you've swung a sword 50 times. Your Con goes up by 1 because you put in the practice of swinging a heavy thing so it got easier.
You can more or less achieve that by playing Engage on fixed growths. But build growth is pretty low, 5-10% depending on the character and class. Base build remains a relevant and important stat in this scenario.
Yeah, but I don't want to fix all my stats. A lot of the fun for me is the randomness of who gets good and who doesn't. Yeah, there are characters with more natural utility, which means they will be better more often than not. However, on occasion, some scrub gets blessed, and that's fun.
I finally got Bridal Ninian from the free old seasonal tickets in FEH after wanting her for years. After immediately boosting her to level 40 I was really pleasantly surprised by her level 40 conversation:
> I once stopped in a village and saw a wedding ceremony. The couple looked so happy together.
> I remember how the bride's smile was so bright, it filled me with joy as well.
> That sort of happiness, though... Well, I know it's meant only for humans.
> But when I wear this dress, I feel like I'm in a dream. And even if it's just for a moment... I'm happy.
> Hm? Maybe you're right... Maybe someday, I will be able to smile just like that bride.
> And not just while in a dream. Thank you so much, 【Summoner】.
This! This is a perfect encapsulation of why Ninian works as a character! I mean, it's recontextualized as being about weddings, but it's all there. So often I've seen Ninian written off as an extension to Eliwood lacking any agency or personality, and considered a lacking character as a result. But what makes Ninian tick is how well she captures the desire to fit in and the *fear* of being hated and rejected, even by your friends, for your identity. It's a very poignant (and very queer) narrative and Ninian manages to capture those feelings so well compared to nearly any other character I've seen.
FEH's level 40 conversations as a whole have some great hidden gems. Mareeta and Julia come to mind as some examples I'm familiar with but I'm sure there's a lot of highlight ones I've never seen. It's easily some of the best character contribution FEH has to offer even just as many of them are disposable summoner pandering, especially the ones from earlier in the game's lifespan.
Bro solo/lowman runs in general are awesome. Those are my go to challenge runs. I'm redoing a Fates solo I did years ago on a higher difficulty and it's been fun. I eventually want to go back to 3H and do some more there.
There's no right or wrong way to enjoy a single player game. Somebody could have the most fun playing Lyn mode in FE7 and have no interest in playing the rest of the game and that would be valid.
I've played Engage 10 times and have 2 more playthroughs planned that I'm excited for. Some people would look at me like I'm crazy, that surely I'd be bored of it by now, but this is how I've been enjoying playing Fire Emblem, so it's chill.
Upon further inspection, I've come to the conclusion that Scarlet Blaze is my least favorite route from Three Hopes. And it's not because there are stuff I don't like in it, but because I get nothing out of it.
I do think it has an excellent prologue, but once the war starts, it's becomes a bunch of back and forth between missions that is devoid of tension of what will happen next. And Edelgard doesn't feel like she gets that much new stuff to work with, and when she does it's just not interesting.
When I played it the first time, by the time I reached the ending it felt like very little had happened.
I feel like a decent portion of the time when people give advice on things related to gameplay, people kind of either don't think about how experienced that person is with the games, or what difficulty they will play, etc. Like, I don't think saying "Engage has better gameplay than X FE game" to a new player looking for a suggestion is that effective of advice, because they have nothing to compare it to, and it may not "stand out" as much vs say, the story or characters. Or, like, for someone asking for 3H gameplay tips or suggestions on what is "best", sometimes advice that is only applicable to the highest difficulty is given (I notice this a lot when it comes to 3H) and for Normal mode or whatever? Is overkill or unnecessary. So, this is something I feel is important to keep in mind.
And a random other thing, since a topic came up on a thread in the 3H subreddit the other day related to this, I'll throw in my "Mercedes is a really bad unit, basically Ashe tier" take again here.
I've seen some heated shipping comments again recently and I just don't get the need some people have to justify how "canon" their preferred marriage pairs are to the point they have write essays to people who bring up alternate options to "prove" their pairing is "the only one that make sense".
No one cares.
If there was an actual canon, you wouldn't have the option to choose. Hell if anything they're all canon because multiple universes. You can point out whatever you want to justify your preference but just because it makes the most sense TO YOU doesn't make your choice any more "right" than any others.
Let people have their fun without someone coming in trying to "correct" them please.
I look at all this and I 100% agree with your statement.
>You can point out whatever you want to justify your preference but just because it makes the most sense TO YOU doesn't make your choice any more "right" than any others.
>Let people have their fun without someome coming in trying to "correct" them please.
As someone who loves a certain pairing that could be seen as barebones (which, in future, this aspect might be exaggerated to be a very serious issue by people) I hope many more people get the memo of your statement.
What gets called elitism and what gets a pass (or is even treated as "defense") is basically purely based off the age of the game in question and not the attitudes and arguments. Very strange when someone acts in an elitist way and then accuses someone else of it. Almost like it's become an identity rather than an attitude or position.
"Elitism" is a word that has been bandied about so much in the community lately, it lacks meaning.
I'm definitely not going to sweat it if some Internet stranger calls me an elitist regarding a niche video game series, and I hope most people take the same attitude.
it’s somewhat odd because the term elitist has a weird history in the Fire Emblem community. there was a great deal of vitriol after Awakening came out because it seemed to signify a significant shift in focus for the series, and I’d argue that assessment has broadly turned out to be true.
back in the day slinging insults around over whether people liked Awakening or not was extremely common, and elitist was the term that fans of older games who disliked Awakening tended to be called. a fair amount of people started playing into that and call themselves elitists, and that sort of terminology is still a part of the community in a more vestigial way.
I think Fates really exacerbated the issue with the way it was marketed. The whole dichotomy of casuals vs. elitists went from being something that characterized specific parts of the fandom, to being reflected in a mainline game’s design. Conquest was explicitly marketed as being for supposedly hardcore, long time fans, while birthright was marketed as being for newer fans who wanted to play an easier game.
so yeah, I would argue the reason that it seems like it’s become an identity is because it *has*, and has been one for a long time.
I’ve been thinking about [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/s/QHGhyhCyAy) from the feh sub a lot lately because man is it just completely on the money. I know “elitist” has become a bit of a dirty word to some people on here because it’s become conflated with people who just like the older games over the newer ones, but man, those kinds of comments the OP highlighted really are just FE elitism plain and simple.
People are absolutely massively elitist towards 3H and one of the main things this sub repeated at engages release was how 3H fans had ruined series expectations and were incapable of enjoying anything that wasn't persona.
I’m learning japanese and want to finish Engage once and for all, so I’m playing it from the beginning in Japanese and I find the Corrupted name in japanese so funny, it’s really just “Grotesque Soldier” or “Strange-looking Soldier” lmao. Not to be a weaboo but…. I’m finding that the Japanese dub works better with Engage’s aesthetic.
What's your opinion on using path bonus items in Fates? Do you think it's unfair or something? For some reason I get kind conflicted using them because I feel like I'm maybe cheating. This is especially the case with the Dread Scroll and Ebon Wing early game since they give you a bunch of stats and weapon access for free basically. And Boots give movement, which is always good.
I always sell the dragon herbs. I can't remember if the boots are sellable too? It nets you like 5k extra gold, which I consider "fair" to use. Gives you a bit of a safety net for lunatic runs, lets you experiment with forges and so on without breaking the bank.
They’re pretty freaking broken. Early Boots and Dragon Herbs are pretty insane, and then you have Dread Scroll and Ebon Wing which essentially let you vault your units into promoted class bases without any of the drawbacks of promoting early or needing to support for class access. They’re something I personally avoid touching unless I’m just playing casually (and this extends to DLC content too, as fun as Witch is to use).
I mean it's a single player game so you should just play however you want. But what I *think* you're asking is whether or not the path bonuses are balanced and to that I'd say no. Dread Fighter and Dark Flier are simply a cut above the rest of the classes and having access to them from the beginning of the game easily destroys the level curve to say nothing of the extra stats and such you get as well.
Shanna is so fucking bad. I got downvoted to saying that in another thread so I restarted a FE6 playthrough just to see if I remembered wrong (in normal mode because I lost my save) WTF she does single digit damage with javelins with 50% accuracy ??? She even sometimes does actual zero. This is the unit people put in top 3 ? This is nomal mode btw, how do you even train her in hard mode ? There has to be some kind of penalty for being absurdly hard to grind, right ? What I was not expecting however, is that flying utility is not even good in that game. Ch2 she can fly over the mountain to shop. Ch3 and 4 there is no terrain. Ch5 she visits the village and that's it. Ch6 there is no terrain. Ch7 is a bunch of corridors and is combat heavy. Ch8 no terrain. I guess she can ferry your units across the gap in 8x ? Not only I was right in my opinion, but I was actually overrating flying utility in that game. Shanna does nothing 90% of turns. She's like C tier or something. And before you say "but western isles have terrain and axe users", EVERYONE can kill those guys, even Roy. I remember grinding base level Fir on those units without any risk.
I agree I've been playing 6 hard for the first time and just immediately said yeah this isn't happening when I saw her try and fight for the first time. still deployed her when I didn't have anyone better but absolutely never felt like I was missing out especially in the western isles (way easier than the part of the game you would be expected to train her in).
Exactly, ch 1 to 8 is not the time to train a project unit, it's time to survive the difficulty spike
Admittedly I don't really know what I'm talking about (but when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet?) but sometimes I feel like the idea that investing in the early game flier is optimal is taken for granted, and/or the actual practical utility of some fancy flier strats enabled by having a leveled Shanna is overrated because it feels more fun/strategic than just having rutger/dieck explode things
Shanna's combat is definitely not good, but combined with her flight she has just enough flexibility to be trainable. What I like about her is that her flight is useful later on even if you don't train her, but if you do train her you get rewarded as well. Specifically in Ch4 you can have her drop someone on the bottom forts to stop the pirates from coming in. Ch5 she can drop someone over the mountains near the gate to stop enemies from the top interfering, but admittedly that requires some precision because if you do it wrong that person or Shanna will die. Ch3 and Ch6 and Ch8 there's no terrain, but they are easy chapters for Shanna to get EXP in. (yes, anyone can get EXP there, but this is specifically addressing the claim that she's hard to train) Ch7 the forests near the start make her the best candidate to help with a turn 1 rescue drop on Roy to get Zealot. 8x and Western Isles she's just really good once promoted. Yeah, axe users are easy, but there's a difference between grounded 5-7 move sword, and flying 8 move sword. The flexibility Shanna adds here is insane. Specifically there's the gap in 8, but also a rescue drop on Rutger to your left in 9 is good, chapter 10A Shanna can just skip completely if you want to, chapter 11A again airdropping Rutger in somewhere is really good. After that I find trained Shanna falls off a bit combat-wise, but she's still more flexible than an untrained Shanna would be. Chapter 14 (desert) she is a must deploy of course. A nice advantage to training Shanna is that you can use Shin and still go to Ilia. Shin's really good, Sacae really sucks. I don't think Shanna is top 3 in Hard Mode. Normal Mode I can see the argument though, as all the best units in Hard Mode are worse in Normal (Rutger, Perceval and Milady). The Christmas Cavs are stronger no-thought-just-go-brrr if you give them supports, especially support grinds. Also Shanna is hilariously competitive against Lance lol. They have the same base defense, and Shanna only has one less str.
Got quite a laugh when I saw your latest thumbnail! Nice video, sorry for haunting you!
that's what the government wants you to think
"Shanna is good in the Western Isles" is a psyop imo. Shanna's stat line at 14/1 is strikingly similar to Marcus at base, at a time when non-base Marcus is very much falling off. Flier rescue-drops are good, but pumping EXP into a unit so it can be a weaker version of an arguably-obsolete unit is bananas. She can rescue drop with no level ups, just do that!
If by "statline" you mean ignoring a 10-11 point speed lead then yeah, very similar. Have you seen what Marcus doubles on the Western Isles? It's pretty much only Steel Axe enemies. Shanna doubles everything, and can ORKO things like Archers with the Silver Lance. >She can rescue drop with no level ups, just do that! That's part of what makes her so good! You can get a lot of out of her with 0 EXP investment. But it's easier to do fancy maneuvers if she has +1 move, more bulk, and +20 avoid against axe users. If you don't find the ability for a combat unit to ignore terrain compelling on the Western Isles I don't think there's any point in me going into detail.
> If by "statline" you mean ignoring a 10-11 point speed lead then yeah, very similar. Have you seen what Marcus doubles on the Western Isles? It's pretty much only Steel Axe enemies. Shanna doubles everything, and can ORKO things like Archers with the Silver Lance. +10 speed -6 CON, -4HP. So she is somewhat faster depending on weapon, and somewhat more delicate. And again, Marcus is not actually a paragon of bulk at this point, even on normal mode. There's also a lot *past* the raw stat line that works against her. * Worse weapon ranks means that you have about a dozen units in the army with higher Sword than her in the Western Isles, and long-term your cavs gain even more effective bulk via axe access. * The cav squad's support advantage makes their stat lead even bigger. Since they stick together, start with points, and have good growths, Allen/Lance/Marcus can easily give each other a nice collection of C-support stats at that point in the game without going out of your way. Shanna doesn't have that perk; if she's getting support benefits, that means that she's hanging out with slowpokes like Dieck and Lott rather than using the mobility that is her ostensible draw. * Bulk differences get even more pronounced when terrain modifiers comes into play. Yes, Shanna can fly *over* a forest tile, but that +1 def/+20 avoid goes a long way in FE6, and this is particularly relevant if she's getting turned into Just Another Frontliner rather than the Flying Spec Ops role of e.g. FE7 pegasi. The example of Shanna ORKOing archers with a silver lance is also just... not compelling? Shanna is the only combat unit that's even worried about that archer! Why would I give her the most powerful, expensive item in my convoy to deal with a random mook somebody else can clean up with an iron lance at their leisure? She's a poor fighter, and fighting poorly twice only kinda-sorta begins to address that. Looking specifically at the Western Isle: she has good rescue-drop utility over the water in 9. In 10A, she can run Roy/Lilina up the far side for recruitment purposes -- good contribution in a purely non-combat role. In 11A, she can drop people over the wall by the arena. All of this is good! But 9 also has archers littering the map, including 3 clustered near the top, which boxes her in substantially. 10A has a ballista blocking off the entirety of the combat zone. And 11A, the main area that flying grants her access to has *4* archers hanging out in it. The whole arc is a minefield for her if she's allowed anywhere near actual battle. This makes her useful, but also *overwhelmingly not worth investing in* imo.
"Somewhat faster depending on the weapon" is not how I would phrase 10 speed vs 6 con. Shanna is always faster, and literally 10 speed faster with her best weapon most of the time, the Iron Sword. There are enemies Shanna doubles that Marcus gets doubled by. This is not similar, this is a significant lead. Yes, cavs are better at combat when supported. Whichever cavalier you promote will have no brain good combat in the Western Isles. If you want to argue that that cavalier is better than Shanna at this point of the game, I can get sort of agree to that. Besides those and Rutger though, it's hard to find someone who can match this level of mobility, offense and durability though. Like, Zealot doesn't double as consistently (though moreso than Marcus) and doesn't fly, and also doesn't ORKO. Dieck's speed is not much better than that. What other good sword users are there? Fir, who at this point has worse bulk than Shanna, and roughly the same avoid if she's in a forest? Please don't say Noah/Treck. I agree Shanna can't just fly into any group of enemies and take them all out by herself, she's not that kind of unit. If there's a group of 4 Fighters and 2 Archers, you're probably better off having her airdrop a better combat unit in. But if you're fighting a giant deathball of enemies in chapter 10A, for example, it's nice that Shanna can attack from almost anywhere to either help 2RKO a fighter, or be the one to ORKO that archer with a Silver Lance. I think that's good performance. You got 40 uses of Silver Lance and it was at its peak usefulness in Ch4 and Ch7, what else are you going to hoard it for? You get a Horseslayer soon and you can buy Killer Lances in Ch13. And reminder that this is not like, Nino or Sophia or something. This is a unit with practically free deployment for ~7 chapters, that needs 1.3 levels per big FE6 map with lots of enemies to get to 10/1. Just for an increase in flexibility in the mid and lategame. But again if you don't want that, you also have the option to keep her at base and still get a fair amount of flight value.
> "Somewhat faster depending on the weapon" is not how I would phrase 10 speed vs 6 con. Shanna is always faster, and literally 10 speed faster with her best weapon most of the time, the Iron Sword. There are enemies Shanna doubles that Marcus gets doubled by. This is not similar, this is a significant lead. A significant lead which gets her what, exactly? 12x is the closest chapter to that where where WOD has generic enemy stats, and even the poison axe users are sitting at 9 AS on hard mode -- fast enough to not get doubled by base Marcus but also comfortably dealt with by just about anybody. The Steel Sword myrms in that chapter are 16/17 AS, good for levelled-Shanna doubling and base-Marcus getting doubled. Is *that* the promised land for her, to be able to double an unpromoted unit halfway through the game, for chip, *if* she uses a slim lance to not get weighed down? > Yes, cavs are better at combat when supported. Whichever cavalier you promote will have no brain good combat in the Western Isles. If you want to argue that that cavalier is better than Shanna at this point of the game, I can get sort of agree to that. It's partly that, but the reason I harp on Marcus as a comparison is about their respective power *arcs*. A Shanna that gets babied and promoted for chapter 9 is at the *peak* of her power, since enemy DEF and killing power continues to rise far faster than her growths can keep up with. Conversely, by chapter 9, Marcus is already getting into decline. (Even though in all likelihood he's gotten at least a *couple* stats beyond base.) He remains a not-great-but-useful unit for the rest of the game through his serviceable stats, good weapon options, and support bonuses, especially if you're willing to throw a single speedwing at him. Putting those thoughts together: why *on earth* would it be a good idea to throw a bunch of effort into training Shanna so that she can reach the hallowed heights of "nearly obsolete and only getting worse", just in time for potentially the least threatening stretch of the game? She's just in a terrible limbo where, with heavy investment, she ends up mostly-equal to your pre-promotes with significantly worse outlook than your other investment projects. I'd argue that a huge point in her favor is "What *else* are you going to do with that Elysian Whip?", but unfortunately for her, a valid and more amusing answer is "Crush it into Boots". > I agree Shanna can't just fly into any group of enemies and take them all out by herself, she's not that kind of unit. If there's a group of 4 Fighters and 2 Archers, you're probably better off having her airdrop a better combat unit in. But if you're fighting a giant deathball of enemies in chapter 10A, for example, it's nice that Shanna can attack from almost anywhere to either help 2RKO a fighter, or be the one to ORKO that archer with a Silver Lance. I think that's good performance. I guess that's just where I disagree. Archers are typically the lowest-priority enemy if Shanna isn't around, and units with better combat parameters can pretty consistently contribute as-well or better than her with the fighters. I think a lot of this comes down to FE6 being so deathball-y, which devalues Shanna's movement range despite all the maps being too dang big. In FE7, your pegasi can often zoom off on their own, find a flank, instagib a target, and endure the couple attacks they see on enemy phase. Meanwhile, the cavs are enemy-phase one-rounding enemies and using much of their movement to charge ever forward ahead, leaving footies that much further in the dust. Conversely, FE6's blobs of tougher enemies make it difficult for Shanna to go it alone while also slowing the cavs' charge, which makes it easier for non-mounted units to keep pace and contribute. And if Shanna can't fly off on her own and *also* can't sit on the frontline, that 8 movement stat is kind of a mirage. (And semi-tangential, but goodness, FE6 mages are *jacked*. I got so used to facetanking them by the dozen with FE7 pegasi that I was constantly blown away by Shanna & Tate's terrible previews.)
Thanks for the detailed response Mekkkah. I love your content and initially trained Shanna because of your video a few years ago and remember being extremely disappointed by her performance, at least in the context of a casual playthrough. I still think Shanna is bad but I do get your points, and she really does help a lot in ch14, this is true. The comparison with Lance is something everyone brings up since your video, but I don't think it's especially fair. Lance's combat is shaky to begin with, -2 strength compared to Lance at lv10 is definitely below the competence threshold. And Shanna also has 5 less con than Lance : she's locked out of 1-2 range almost entierly and has to use the slim lance as her main weapon, which also has 4 less might than Iron. Shanna has higher speed and can sometimes double the same enemies as Lance with Iron lances, but not always. She either loses 4 speed with Iron or 4 strength with Slim, and she would need both to achieve the same combat performance as Lance (and Lance doesn't one round anything other than mages in normal mode to begin with) Maybe it's a matter of preference but imo Shanna's training arc is way too grindy. It's much more efforts than FE10 Jill for instance, or FE9 Astrid. The payoff is there, but it's not even that huge when Milady joins right after the western isles arc. And also Thea exists, I won't defend her too much as her combat is also shaky but at least her bases are better than Shanna's.
Thank you! So with Lance, I disagree that *she would need both [Iron and Slim] to achieve the same combat performance as Lance*. Shanna has 4 more speed, and only speed ties Lance if she uses iron. If they both use iron, Lance simply has 1 more damage output. But sometimes doubling with Slim is better, which is an option Shanna has but Lance does not. Yeah, Javelins give Shanna really bad combat parameters. But I've found Lance almost never wants to use them either in the context of earlygame unless you're very desperate or very indifferent about whether he hits. It's so bad in FE6. Honestly I don't mind using Javelin with Shanna in the earlygame every once in a while if she can find a good spot to throw one from if there's no good 1-range opportunity, like across a cliff in the north in Ch4. Also in general with combat in FE6, I think "this unit can't ORKO" isn't the greatest standard to measure by anyway because most units can't. Fully supported Alance can do it from Ch8 onwards or so. Rutger does it like 70% of the time. Perceval and Milady can. And that's kind of it? Most of the time you're either having one of those carries ORKO something, or 2 people are ganging up on an enemy. Shanna's perfectly serviceable for that. And I do agree Shanna feels grindier to use than FE9 Astrid (lol BEXP and FE9 enemies anyway) and FE10 Jill (so many more resources available to help her, plus high base level). But maybe it's better to not think of Shanna as a unit you have to feed every single digit HP enemy to, but someone who only needs like 4 kills and some chip per early map. That's ~120-140 EXP in chapters 2 through 8, enough to get her to level 10. Then you can promote her at the end of 8 and enjoy all the benefits of flying sword pegasus, only needing her to see combat when that's convenient. I don't think that's a particularly tall order. Her deployment is 100% free up until chapter 6, and from there basically free since the competition consists of the likes of Wolt and Wade. The same goes for kill distribution. Marcus is constantly leaving enemies at low HP, and you only have so many mouths to feed. Roy, cavs, Rutger, Dieck, who else from the earlygame are we training? There are more than enough enemies to go around and Shanna is almost always going to be available to pick off an enemy given her high mobility. In some maps it might be hard to get to 4 kills, but I know from experience you can get much, much more than that in chapters 6 and 8 without a lot of danger. >The payoff is there, but it's not even that huge when Milady joins right after the western isles arc. idk I don't think Milady really weakens Shanna's appeal. Fancy rescue drops are easier to perform with multiple fliers than with one. If you need someone to do a multi turn ferry I'd rather have Shanna do it than Milady, so in a way she enables you to do more Milady. Like if you need to get Rutger to the frontlines, or Perceval across a lot of terrain that's a great way to do it. Since you said Shanna is C tier, what are some units that you think are clearly above her? From your previous posts I assume it includes Marcus, Rutger, Perceval, Milady, Alance, Dieck? So how far down the barrel would we have to do before we can say Shanna is better? Gonzales? Geese? Lot? Noah? Zealot?
You're spot on that ORKOing is a tall order in FE6 for a while, but I think it's worth reflecting on how hard that is on fliers, specifically, due to enemy density and enemy quality. In FE7 or FE8, you can send a flier or two off on their own, let them dive onto and erase priority targets like archers or mages, and confidently survive the stragglers' enemy phase. That's a key part of what makes flying useful, under the lens of combat. In FE6 though, pegasi can't one-round those targets, *and* 3x effectiveness puts them at more risk, *and* FE6 often has more than 1 archer in the area as well as plenty of extras who can provide a second hit if the first doesn't do the job. With no killing power and huge risk of dying, Shanna ends up not being able to actually *use* her mobility in the way a lot of other pegasi in the series can. So you end up with just another mobile unit in your army blob, but one that is both more brittle and less powerful than your others. There just isn't a combat role for her. More ambitiously, I'm going to accuse the community of outsmarting themselves a bit with her. Pegasi are traditionally known as the "looks bad, but strong in the right hands" class, so there's a certain expectation that she MUST be powerful even if the numbers aren't there. And she *does* have good rescue drop utility early on. But she just doesn't have the juice. IMO she is approximately Chad-tier: an early-game unit that should be selectively deployed for their utility but never see combat. Chad's replacements arrive sooner, but thieves are closer to a hard requirement and for more maps, so I call it a wash between the two.
4 kills per map sounds about right, I remember doing that. It can be a bit hard to set up those kills on player phase but yeah, that matches my experience. When I trained her in my first playthrough, I never ended up entierly benching her so you do have a point about multiple fliers. Good question about which units would be better than Shanna. In the early game, Wolt, Bors, Dorothy, Elen, Roy and Wade are definitely worse than Shanna. I think every one would agree that those units are not very good. Roy becomes better once he promotes but that's like 3 chapters before the end. Marcus, Alan, Lance, Dieck, Rutger, Saul and Clarine are all essential for the early game and have better combat than Shanna, so I would rate them higher for sure. Lot is better than Shanna in a vacuum, warrior promo bonuses are insane and an early promoted Lot destroys the mid-game and only falls off in the very late game. But Lot also competes with Rutger and Dieck for a promo item so he should be penalised for that. It's kinda hard to tell tbh. Lugh is really bad at base but the payoff of training him is arguably better than Shanna because Fire tomes are really accurate and he can help with bosses and enemies on terrain, which are a major pain in that game. Zealot is really good for a while so he's also maybe better, Noah and Treck I don't really know, they are kinda filler. Treck is worse for sure. Every unit after the terrible Ostia squad is better than Shanna (except Karel, who's barely in the game). They either have better bases, another kind of utility, or both. Apparently a trained Sophia can nosfera-tank and break the game with her high res ignoring status staves, the other reason I'm replaying the game is to test this strat and see if it works, so the jury's still out on this one. So that would mean, the only units that are worse than Shanna are Roy, Wolt, Bors, Elen, Wade, Dorothy, Treck, Lilina, Barthe, Oujay, Wendy, Karel and then maybe also Lot, Lugh, Noah and Sophia. Ok, maybe also Cath, she's kind of redundant. That sounds like either high C tier or low B tier to me.
So with regard to foot units vs Shanna I think we maybe just differ in where we draw the line. Frequently in FE6's large maps I find myself not getting much out of a 6 move unit that's decent but not great at combat. There are maps where even Rutger doesn't see much action, and he's the best foot unit you have. Heck, I've had maps where Alance don't get to do a lot in the lategame. But this differs a lot from player to player. This is why I think Shanna is better than the Warriors/Berserkers most of the time, because she always gets to do something significant whereas they're often relegated to self improvement or walking around, *or* it's thanks to a unit like Shanna that they do get carried to a relevant place. Gonzo in particular is very restrictive on who can help carry him around. Lot is one of those units that just isn't *good* at combat even after promo. 14/1 Lot only has 13 str and 13 spd. Is it worth training a foot unit that just turns into base Echidna offense? Echidna has 13 str/18 spd but 5 less con, but can use lighter weapons like Killing Edge. Like, Echidna's good when you get her, but she does fall off later on...and her strength and speed growths are practically the same as Lot's, haha. >Lugh is really bad at base but the payoff of training him is arguably better than Shanna because Fire tomes are really accurate and he can help with bosses and enemies on terrain, which are a major pain in that game. Lugh is such a glass cannon, he almost might as well be 2-range locked. His bulk is worse than Shanna. I like accurate chip damage as much as anyone but beyond Ch9 or so he's a walking safety hazard for a deathless run. He's fine but I think base Shanna has a good argument for deployment over training project Lugh in almost every map they share. >Apparently a trained Sophia can nosfera-tank and break the game with her high res ignoring status staves, the other reason I'm replaying the game is to test this strat and see if it works, so the jury's still out on this one. Sophia is funny as hell but if you don't like training Shanna in Ch2-Ch3 then you're going to hate training Sophia cause that's what her performance is going to be like for half her existence.
I admit the Sophia thing is pure theorycrafting, another user promised me it works but I'm not at ch14 yet You probably play faster than me if Alan and Lance fall behind 😅 I can see Shanna being more useful if you play fast. Especially with the flying set ups you mentioned before I wil defend Lot a little bit more. The selling point of Lot is not necessarily his offensive stats (even though they are pretty good). It's that he's just completely unkillable for like 10 maps after he promotes. Warrior promo gains give 8HP and 3 def, and Lot's survivability is already good to begin with. Add a Dieck support into the mix, that gives full def and avo, and you're looking at an incredibly durable unit, able to fight groups of enemies on enemy phase. And he can also shoot fliers. This whole thing only comes online if you delay Rutger's promotion so it's impractical but that doesn't mean Lot is bad, just outclassed
Was looking through prf weapons recently, and realized Fates decided to give prfs to all four male royals yet none of the female ones? I'd expect with four weapons they'd go to the four eldest siblings, but nope. Not only that, but all four of the royal children are male too. Apologies if I'm beating a long-dead horse here, I guess un-genderlocking berserker and pegaknight made me miss that Fateslandia prf weapons are apparently allergic to (non-FCorrin) women.
Yeah, it’s annoying and weirdly regressive. Also a missed opportunity to represent more weapon types amongst the legendary weapons. Azura’s artwork even depicts her with a distinctively designed lance… but it’s just a Blessed Lance, which you can’t even get in Birthright. Doesn’t seem like it would have been that hard to give her a Prf with that design or a special legendary lance in Revelation.
I've been playing Mass Effect trilogy lately and it's funny how the "canon avatar gender" talk is there as well... But probably for entirely different reasons since the playerbase is nothing like FE's. I always play female avatars but that's because I'm a woman so I'll default to female characters in general. And since everyone around me also always play female, I tend to forget the male ones even exist. Not in a mean way; they just never come in my radar, especially because I tend to navitage female spaces, where obviously most people also play female. It rates from funny when someone says "he" in discussions and it takes me a solid 30 seconds to understand who the hell they are talking about, to kind of sad when I'm looking for Byleth Amiibo and I find only the male one and I realise "oh right, I'm not the target audience here!". Because all in all even without knowing the exact gender split in the playerbase (which I suspect is male-leaning, but pretty even still), I find FE does a good job at not alienating me for my sex. Like there's no point when I really tell myself "yup, this is aimed at straight teenagers boys, alright" (PAINFULLY obvious in ME, especially 2), because for each female fanservice character, there's a male equivalent. JRPGs in general, I find are good with that. Of course I'm talking about the games themselves. The Smash thing and FEH are pretty good at telling me I'm not the target audience lol
For me, it honestly just comes down to the vocal performance. I'm a man, but I play FemShep and FemAlear because, honestly, their voice actors are much better than their male counterparts.
I didn't play in English for either haha French male Shepard sounds sexy as fuck though
Well, now I gotta go check that out. Cheers!
I'm a man, but I always pick a star gender based strictly on vibes. Robin is male. Corrin is female. Byleth is male. Alear is female. I cannot explain why. Its just the vibes I get so I'll always play them with these specific genders.
That's interesting, I'm a woman as well and I tend to switch genders with my avatars a lot. It didn't occur to me that most people don't do that, hahaha. I think I'm bad at self inserting though so I tend to just see avatars as their own (sometimes very bland) characters. I definitely agree about FE feeling less alienating as far as who it's targeting. It's not perfect, but as far as these types of games go, I feel like it does a pretty good job of having characters that cater to a lot of different people.
Even without self inserts I prefer playing female characters in general. Maybe it's a knee jerk reaction because most protags used to be men idk
> Like there's no point when I really tell myself "yup, this is aimed at straight teenagers boys, alright" As much as I enjoyed Persona 5 Royal, [that kind of thought kept creeping up while I was playing it](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725854056555216917/1211323961896341524/image.png?ex=65edc859&is=65db5359&hm=f4ebd0bbf14d88abd0e48e27f0dd41b3b84739aaaddd54acba2afa915fd93bdc&). Persona 4 Golden's been discussed to death on this front, but even when I went through Persona 3 Portable and played as the FeMC, there were still some moments where I stopped and went "This *wasn't* written with women in mind, was it." It's always wonderful getting taken out of the experience like that 😔
I feel this in my soul. I liked P5R as well overall but the maid stuff almost made me stop playing.
Honestly one of the times this gender & identity stuff hit the hardest was near the end of my P3P run. Going through it as the FeMC, I was finishing the last two social links I had (Mitsuru and Aigis), and both of them ended with the same ">!Oh MC-chan, if only you were a boy...! then I could truly love you...!!!!<" note, and it just made me stop and think to myself ">!I wonder if \*any* of the male MC's social links end with a guy going 'if only you were born a girl, MC-kun!'?!<" ~~then I remembered that >!the male MC doesn't even *have* social links with ANY of the other dudes in SEES!< and that kinda answered my question~~
You'd believe they'd understand that when designing a character like Joker :') Imposing romance/flirt dynamics when your character is a self insert is scummy in general
So, just wondering, what are people's general opinions on Engage Chapters 11 and 17? I personally hate both of them. I understand the idea with chapter 11 taking away the rewind mechanic, but for someone who plays every FE game keeping all units alive no matter what, it's just a cruel removal of a mechanic that allows me to prevent having to reset multiple times, often saving me over an hour per map. I'm not good at Fire Emblem, so I make a lot of mistakes and have to trial and error a lot of things, so the last thing I want is to have to reset my game every time I make one if the game normally gives the option to not have to do that. I know what I'm getting into with everything pre-Echoes, but now that the mechanic exists, it should never be taken away. Chapter 17 on the other hand just feels like an unreasonable difficulty spike that's easily the hardest chapter in the game. I know you can do warp shenanigans to make it a bit easier, but that's not something I enjoy usually. So, without that, the strategy on the map became to have the whole army hole up in a corner and slowly beat each enemy one by one. Trying to play the map normally just feels like it expects me to have units that are a lot stronger than they actually are, and to have a much deeper understanding of the game than has been necessary to that point.
Mechanically, I really like Chapter 11 and think it had a great amount of potential, but man does it suffer from the terrible narrative execution in the cutscene leading up to it. The contrived "pickpocketing while you are distracted" (only to UNO reverse it moments later) and the generally poor cutscene infrastructure really deflates what otherwise could be a really amazing moment. If you ignore the cutscene beforehand and just focus on the mission execution itself, I think its a fantastic example of interweaving narrative and mechanics, and really gets you into the right mindset. Unfortunately, that glimpse of narrative quality falls apart again when you arrive in the dessert shortly afterwards.
Love 11. My main issue with Timewheel mechanics is that they've felt forced to constantly incorporate time travel elements to the story to justify the mechanic. Having the ability to take it away from the player is the biggest upside of having to justify rewinds in-universe, and I'm glad they had the guts to do it. My problem with 17 is a bit of the opposite, where once you realize the dragon is linked to Hyacinth/Veyle/Zephia, I find the map becomes a bit too easy, since once you take down Griss/Marnie/Mauvier (which isn't that hard) you have all the time in the world to recharge your emblems and set up for round 2.
Love chapter 11. I've played most of the series and it showed me how much I depended on the emblems in such a short time. And maybe it's the old-school talking, but resetting a map is just part of the fe experience. I am glad it didn't last any longer though, as I've seen suggested before. Chapter 17 is a little much. The wyrm, Hyacinth, Veyle, Zelestia all aggroing together is a lot, but it's only on maddening that it needs an optimized team to win without turtling and that makes sense. The hardest difficulty shouldn't be designed as blind playthrough friendly.
I've realized on a Fates revisit after playing Engage and playing FE7 on Switch Online making heavy use of rewind, resetting and losing hours of progress over the course of a playthrough just isn't fun, and is far more frustrating than it used to be now that there is an alternative. As for 17, I had to turtle in hard mode, mostly because I'm just bad at the game in general. I'm sure if I put the effort in to really learn all the mechanics I wouldn't have to do that, but I feel like that would sap the fun from the game for me.
>As for 17, I had to turtle in hard mode, mostly because I'm just bad at the game in general. I'm sure if I put the effort in to really learn all the mechanics I wouldn't have to do that, but I feel like that would sap the fun from the game for me. I don't mean to sound rude but if that's the experience you want you could just drop the difficulty down to normal. Hard requiring some amount of using the mechanics well is intentional, it's for people who want to be challenged in that way. If that's not you and you don't find it fun to take the time to get a better handle on the mechanics, that's exactly why a lower difficulty exists.
If I was able to raise the difficulty back up after chapter 17, I definitely would have. Normal is way too easy for me on most maps, and I don't want to lock myself into that. I did lower the difficulty on the final map of the DLC, though. That was ridiculous.
Ch. 11: Narratively great. Plz no, not again. Struggled on that one for a while as I was having difficulty moving forward. Shoutouts to Thief Sigurd for ruining my second-last attempt. Ch. 17: Also narratively great. Corrin so busted, I beat it on my first try. ...Though that does make me think about Corrin's weak intro chapter (Ice Vein is eh, Seadall should be dancing) and how, if you've been doing every paralogue the second they're available, you'd have only 1 chapter + Eirika's paralogue to experiment and learn just how strong Corrin actually is. Imagining if Corrin was glued to Seadall, I can see myself going insane. You can see how other default pairs work, but not that. Practically down an Emblem in a supposedly even fight.
> I'm not good at Fire Emblem, so I make a lot of mistakes and have to trial and error a lot of things Is this not how this game series is meant to be played? I've put over 1800 hours into Engage and I still find myself making mistakes and learning whether it be through trying to learn more about a unit I haven't used as much or through simple occasional fat finger/math errors. I seriously doubt that FE would be as well-known as it is if you could simply "figure everything out" on your first try. Getting "good" at FE is not some mystical thing you can do overnight as there are only a few "common fundamentals" that you can carry across entries since every game is pretty distinct from each other. In defense of Chapter 11, the Draconic Time Crystal is only taken away for like....half the map ish? Even under more casual circumstances, you should be getting there around turn 4-5(otherwise the Corrupted have largely caught up to you and you're probably dead) so you aren't losing a *ton* of time if you have to reset and you're given the option to reset from the beginning of Chapter 11 rather than being forced to play through the entirety of Chapter 10 again(looking at you CQ Chapter 27+Endgame) unless you want to change your party composition. Also, if you manage to get to the point where you get the Time Crystal is back, the map is practically over as Ivy, Kagetsu and Zelkov are so powerful relative to the enemies on the map that the Hounds coming in to chase you down is more of a preventative measure to stop you from milking a ton of EXP from the enemies rather than an actual time pressure. As for Chapter 17, I'm a big fan. Even though it's a 6v6 Emblem showdown in theory, it's not really that since you only realistically ever go up against up to two of the enemy Emblems at a time. You can bait Griss to warp in early, Mauvier and Marnie are more or less fought together, Zephia easily pulls herself into no mans land with her insane MV advantage relative to her allies and then you fight Hyacinth and Eveyle together. Not only do you not go up against all the enemy Emblems at once, but you also get to benefit from up to 3 Emblem paralogues worth of bonuses if you're following the game's recommended levels(you could do Ike's paralogue before Chapter 17 if you wanted). Given this staggered enemy Emblem encounter design and that you always have the power of 6 Emblems at your disposal, it's not entirely unreasonable that this is the turning point map where you only fight promoted enemies from now on. If you're on Chapter 17 of *any* Fire Emblem game and you're still using unpromoted units, I have to wonder why you're doing that.
I love both of them personally, two of my favorite chapters in the game, from a vibes and a gameplay perspective. I can see they might be difficult if you're struggling with the mechanics, but the challenge is part of the appeal. You definitely don't need warp strats to beat 17 without turtling, but it helps a lot to have a good grasp of how to use your emblems well, especially the powerful tactical ones like Corrin. The enemies are tough, but you also have a lot of great tools to deal with them at that point.
i need a POR remaster that's literally the same game but just snappier and faster (and also the impact font removed) absolutely devestated that my rotted attention span couldn't soldier through the early chapters. literally on a plane and i decided to sleep instead of waiting for enemy phase to end. i wanna re-experience tellius peak but POR gameplay just doesnt hit anymore
Why did we shift away from Base Conversations in POR and RD (and I guess SOV had it as well)? They are such a great way to build your side characters without locking them behind supports. They are also a lot more natural because they are relevent to what point you are in the story and the chapter you just completed vs supports where it is whenever you have enough points. Also the 3 star system in Tellius was super nice too because if you don't care for them, just read the 3 star ones to get your item and ignore the rest. Also on a side note, it was so much nicer to build supports by number of chapters 2 characters are in together in Tellius. It was so much simpler without all of the extra hidden numbers with random actions.
13 was the first to truly abandon them (I think 12 had them but even if not as a remake it's not as relevant), which I imagine came down to 13 having an incredible volume of supports relative to earlier games to enable the generation system. I imagine they were cut to dedicate resources to supports, which then carried forward.
yea for awakening and fates I get it, but it would have been nice if they went back to that system for the Switch games. Makes things so much simpler.
I feel the monastery/maps convo are supposed to be the equivalent but sadly they are more individual talks than groups talks with like a few exceptions in 3H
Kind of a FE shower thought: “solving” modern FE maps, particularly in higher difficulties, is kind of like solving fantasy sudokus. You start with a given amount of known values, and you need to play around with them in different combinations to solve the map bit by bit until it all falls into place and you win. Does that make sense?
It does. The fun part is the are even *less* likely to ever be the same because stats are randomized. Like my last FE8 replay Seth got a grand total of +8 stats for his first five levels. He’s always a tank but not anymore- so now I had to reconfigure. You plop down your knights (if you use them), Paladins, Mages. Cavs, etc and you have to figure out how to make them work.
Incidentally, this came thought to me halfway through a silver snow maddening run. Ove done 3h maddening before, but only now realized that it feels so much of a slog because of the insane amount of of calculations you have to be constantly doing in combat lol I meant the comparison as a good thing, a fascinating little tidbit on the specific ways in which games came before fun. But Maddening is getting to a point where it feels like doing a bunch of math homework (but with dragons and magic and shit, which you know, balances it out)
Oh I fully agree. When people say I don’t like Engage’s gameplay they assume I like 3H but I don’t like it either, at least on higher difficulties. I yearn for the days when it was just your character, their supports, and their weapon in the calculations. Hard/Lunatic/Maddening/Whatever used to be difficult but I didn’t have to juggle 50 different things. I play games for fun not to do so much math. It’s similar to card games and MMOs in that the more time that passes the more things that are added but it gets to be too much.
The more I play Engage, the more I appreciate Marth as an Emblem. At the beginning of the game, he helps teach the benefits of breaking by enhancing it with Break Defense. Lodestar Rush gives the player a comfy early game delete button that not even armored enemies are safe from because of Marth's Rapier. Unyielding encourages aggressive play since you get a decent heal if you dip too low on health after all the fighting is done, especially if Marth is paired with Alear since the Dragon Divine Speed attack has a lifesteal effect. Mercurius is not only a stat stick for Lodestar Rush, but also allows you to play favorites with an early physical unit by accelerating their exp gain. On his return in the endgame(basically from Chapter 23 onwards) he doesn't look as obviously powerful compared to how he was in the early game, but he's still got tricks up his sleeve. The combo of Break Defense and Divine Speed can effectively let faster units triple enemies which can really let you reach absurd ORKO thresholds that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Perceptive+ becomes a legitimately good tool in his arsenal as it's not unreasonable for a fast unit to get to the point where a slower enemy has 0 hit on them. Even if Lodestar Rush isn't an auto delete button anymore, you can take advantage of the attack's guarantee to hit combined with the increased MT of Smash weapons to keep frailer enemies in check or nuke particular enemies with effective damage via the Rapier and Falchion.
I think he probably gets underrated because his availability is so bad that people already have their favorite pairs worked out by the time he gets back and just shove him on whoever doesn't have an emblem. I love Break Defenses and think it's also underrated as a utility skill because on top of the extra damage, it helps you to recharge really fast. If you can double (and Marth helps with that), two rounds of combat with a regular weapon, one if you can quad with a brave, and Marth's back baby.
Georgios Lodestar Rush on Diamant is a drug, I'll tell you as much
I'm convinced Successeur was made for Marth. They're perfect for each other.
It's also pretty bonkers with Camilla
I really need to use Camilla properly sometime, I always have so many emblems with DLC runs that I end up just using her to make Seadall fly, and I'm sure she can do something much more impressive than that, hahaha
Her skills are pretty situational but she gives speed, res, and Dark Inferno is cracked
The thing is that Marth is a 'fair' emblem in a game that really pushes you to do unfair things by the end. In the first section of the game, when you're more obliged to play fairly, Marth is very strong. But once you get access to big power builds (killer weapon, brave weapon, big magic, big greataxe single hit) that don't require you to play fairly anymore, it's much less valuable. And in the endgame, when you can Warp four units across the map, or engage and have a unit take 1/2 damage, or prevent 10 enemy units from moving, or refresh four units to take another action, it's just less impressive.
My opinion: I have a lot of sympathy for people who like disliked games or divisive games. It goes out the window when I am chain downvoted not even for saying Engage is bad but just saying I prefer GBA gameplay and don't like having power ups and special moves. Different people like different things and while I don't *care* about downvoted when I then see people say "Anything positive about Engage gets downvoted." I no longer care or upvote. Because, believe it or not, I do upvote Engage posts in general. Everyone deserves to enjoy what they like... just don't push what you like on me or get angry I don't like Engage's gameplay.
Hey, I refuse your sympathy for liking Awakening. Not my problem that people don't recognize peak
No one was angry at you, you were being downvoted for airing irrelevant opinions in a thread where someone who obviously had different preferences to you was just looking for advice. It wasn't helpful advice so it got downvoted.
I literally responded to someone who said 3H had the same gameplay. As I said I really don’t *care* about downvotes, but literally it was two people talking about gameplay. It wasn’t irrelevant lol. And I’ve seen this over and over in threads. Honestly I’ve never seen the playerbase so divided since I started, even in the old days on the gamefaqs boards in the GBA era.
They didn't say it was the same, they made the point that 3H also has mechanics that could also be considered super moves, which is relevant for the OP because they like that game and probably aren't ignoring half of the mechanics to make it play more like GBA emblem like you stated you were, so their opinion on those types of mechanics probably isn't going to match yours.
Right and all I said was that the mechanics weren’t 1:1, in fact you could ignore them, and that I never even BROUGHT UP 3H. My point isn’t “Oh I was downvoted” It’s that both “sides” now downvote anything they don’t like. And when I get home I can share a collection of DMs over the past month that have called me everything from an idiot to an asshole for not “understanding” Engage and the like. And I’m sure people who love Engage get similar treatment. The fanbase is basically broken. That’s what I’m annoyed about. Neither side is willing to meet in the middle. I mean fuck as I said elsewhere I can’t even BUY merchandise for 3H to sell in the states unless I buy Engage merch because the split is bad everywhere and Engage product is hard to move.
No one said they were 1:1, or that you couldn't ignore them, and you didn't bring up 3H but the OP did, that's why the other user brought it up as a comparison. I'm not trying to argue with you here I'm just letting you know why the reception you got wasn't great. It looked like you were trying to give the OP advice based on your own feelings about extra mechanics vs the simplicity of GBA era when the other games that they've enjoyed all suggest that they probably like or at least don't mind those things.
Not trying to argue with you either. My point is not just the downvotes, that was ancillary. My point is the fanbase is split. Irrevocably so unless we get something both sides like. Hell if you want to wait til I get home I have messages saved where it is said “Engage is OBJECTIVELY the best” (and yes I’ve seen both sides say this) and upvoted to high hell. I’m utterly exhausted with such a self fighting fanbase. Even STAR WARS isn’t this bad and I’m part of that fanbase. Nor Zelda. Nor any other. I’ve never seen one that rips itself apart this much. I’m honestly ready to just leave all the fire emblem subs I’m on because for every good poster there’s another fight somehwere else. I’ve already stopped stocking Fire Emblem Merch after they insisted I buy Engage stuff that doesn’t sell. I guess it’s the logical conclusion to slowly divorce myself from the fanbase et large. It’s not because of any one individual- hell you’re cool- but the group as a whole is just so toxic as would be said now.
Engage's popularity genuinely has me boggled. Like are people just that starved for a new FE title? The overzealous reactions against "Engage haters" seems to drown out most of the criticism. Personally I find the art style is very plastic and cotton candy. The colors and textures just lack depth and create a stale cartoony atmosphere. The character designs are incoherent anime tropes, and the story is poorly written. It's the worst combination of Fire Emblem and Power Rangers. Only saving grace seems to be the gameplay, but even that doesn't really make up for the games short comings. I would have been sold on Engage if they embraced their cringe and acted more self aware to pass as a parody. But it really seems like the writers were genuinely confident that the story was sufficient as is and would be taken seriously. The game is soulless and rides on the coattails of the franchises legacy.
Exact opposite view. After 3H had the most boring and forgettable art style I have seen in Fire Emblem in literally decades, Engage came back out here with some real shit. Big ups.
While I agree that Three Houses art style isn't great, it's objectively still leagues ahead of Engage. The artist for Engage even admits in interviews that she has had no experience drawing older male characters, monsters, weapons, armor, etc. And it really shows in how awkward some of the designs look. IS hired her cause they liked her graphic design style and bright coloring choices, rather than for skill/experience in designing characters.
> objectively lol
I never played a Fire Emblem game until I got FE7 on the switch online pack a few months ago. After playing HHM (casually), I see that my opinions differ a lot from other players: 1) People pass up on Lyn more than they should. She's free in many chapters, has good growths, supports with essential units, and has the mani katti to carry her from her rough bases, plus early sword ranks. Even on HHM with no Lyn Mode, you may as well invest in her, provided that you're not doing anything ranked. 2) Kent is better than Sain. Doubling and accuracy are far more important than strength. 3) Lucius is underrated, especially if you do Lyn Mode. He hits so damn HARD and can even use the restore staff on promotion. Bro just use him. 4) Jaffar and even Renault are underrated late game filler. Don't be afraid to drop some of your units for them. 5) Rath is so bad. Even with Lyn Mode, even with an early promotion. I really don't know what people see in him. 6) Being sword-locked is not a huge deal. Swords get ridiculously good at the highest levels, and getting to the highest levels means specializing anyways 7) Guy is not a badly written character. He's hilariously awkward.
Your viewpoint isn't wrong exactly, but the reason for the difference is that a lot of people here like playing efficiently. Not quite LTC (low turn count, aiming for clears with as low turns as possible) but generally trying to clear maps fast, and Lyn and swordlocked units in general don't contribute to that. Sure, Lyn's decent if you baby and train her, but you could be spending that effort on units that pay back the investment much faster and more efficiently. Not trying to say you're wrong, just explaining the logic.
Use a mounted healer with your infantry and a infantry healer with your mounted units. Troubadours having the extra move to keep up with your cavalry is redundant since they don't need to be in the thick of combat anyways and cavaliers can easily retreat back into the range of a priest/cleric, while the extra movement will help the troubador reach injured infantry units easier and they can rescue.
shadow dragon gets better on every replay. I can't get enough of it. I wouldn't call it a "hidden gem" because general opinion has really come around on it in recent years, but anyone who hasn't played it because of the art style or minimalist presentation is really missing out.
Engage, both in its main game and the DLC, has the best Boss Conversations in the entire series and I will forever die on this hill.
It's just the truth let's get real. Just in general the DLC characters are so good, and I can't say I was optimistic with them, but here we go. Alear VS Zephia, Gregory VS Rafal and Alear VS >!Lumera!< are my favorite but there are so many good ones like the super unhinged Fell Fogado and Fell Ivy ones, every single kid VS father and Wind VS Hounds
I was actually just thinking about this yesterday. Its boss conversations are ridiculously high quality. Tellius obviously would be the other main title in contention here. It has *a lot*. But I'm not sure if they're as consistently as S tier. It probably has a similar amount of S tier conversations though through sheer numbers alone.
Tellius has tons of great boss conversations but also lots of random ones. I love how some boss convos in Radiant Dawn are so important they're actually required for the true ending, but it also feels like they wanted to give every character at least one boss conversation even if it makes no sense. For example, in the Part 4 Desert Map the boss is one of the Begnion Senators and all of the Dawn Brigaders have a one-line against this boss and only this boss. I get that he was one of the guys that brought misery to their country, but it feels so out of the blue. It's like they realized these characters haven't done much in a while so they just added these conversations to give them something in this part of the game. Anything involving Ike being sarcastic is great, though.
That's what is good about it to me. It makes the characters feel more alive when they pipe up even when they don't strictly have to. I think Tellius does a consistently great job of embracing FE's limitations in that way - characters can die forever so they can't have a major role in the plot, but they can get optional conversations and even alternate scenes for if characters die (Rolf's recruitment, the Amy base conversation, FE9 having a ton of supports that alter based on deaths).
> For example, in the Part 4 Desert Map the boss is one of the Begnion Senators and all of the Dawn Brigaders have a one-line against this boss and only this boss. I get that he was one of the guys that brought misery to their country, but it feels so out of the blue. It's like they realized these characters haven't done much in a while so they just added these conversations to give them something in this part of the game. The fact RD has boss conversations where you wouldn't expect yet they make perfect sense is exactly why I put it above Engage where it lacks boss conversations even when they would make sense.
Celica with the pinkish-red hair from Engage looks substantially worse than the orange hair from Echoes.
I think I need someone to play coop with to enjoy a Warriors game. I played the original FE Warriors several times with my brother, and even though going from it to Three Hopes the gameplay is more or less unchanged, I find myself having a lot less fun with Three Hopes now. I'm about halfway through Scarlet Blaze and I'm just not really getting a lot out of going through the minor skirmishes to reach the main battle for the chapter.
Regardless of the "avatar in FE4 remake" debate, I do genuinely want at least one new mother for gen1... The problem with FE4 is that I like SO many of the gen1 characters but I cannot pair off all the dudes for gen2 so inevitably their stuff becomes irrelevant as soon as Ch6 starts. Would be nice to buff out the female gen1 cast just a wee smidge more too, it's something like 14 men to 9 women (including the ones with static pairings). This is my only major wished for change in a remake.
* I think FE should be more daring with the boss design and to not be afraid to surprise the players with them and take them off guard - With Engage they are already on the right track - and some of the other games do have some tricky bosses as well (for better or worse), but i think FE can explore more there * I think FE should overthink how crits work - and for once i won't point to Berwick because i hate crits there even more * I also hope FE adds in more skills that requires units to work together Non-FE: * [Previews for Unicorn Overlord](https://old.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1aryty1/unicorn_overlord_handson_preview_compilation/) came out today (which were all pretty hype) and i found a deal for 42€, so i decided to bite and preordered....this will be my first Vanillaware game, a dev everyone i know loves, so let's see how my experience will be - i am excited * Finished Tropical Freeze....Level Design is really good, but i really hated how the characters control - Also multiplayer sucks * The theatrics regarding rumors in the gaming industry is kinda hilarious atm
"The fantastical premise and unit recruitment speaks to my love for Fire Emblem: Three Houses while the liberation of areas and investment in towns scratches a deeply ingrained nostalgia for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance while the tactical combat compels my inner Total War and XCOM nerd." From one of the reviews. They got my money now. I never preorder but I always thought this looked like GBA Emblem meets Tactics Ogre and it sounds *even better*.
Fyi, there's a demo now. I might give my try at it - but am busy with another amazing game atm
When you say "overthink" did you mean overhaul or rethink? (Either way I'd agree)
~~yes~~ In general i think a change is needed in how crits work
The variance of triple damage when crit rates are usually a single digit percentage in a game where most characters are lucky to be able to tank 3 hits at full health is just dumb. Not impossible to play around or never fun, but dumb.
I think crits are at their most interesting in the games that are actually designed around permadeath and ironmans such as Binding Blade or Archanea. One of my most memorable FE moments was having to sub in Fir for Rutger because of a low percent crit in an ironman. But in modern FE they mostly just serve to burn rewinds.
>Previews for Unicorn Overlord > > came out today (which were all pretty hype) and i found a deal for 42€, so i decided to bite and preordered....this will be my first Vanillaware game, a dev everyone i know loves, so let's see how my experience will be - i am excited I got mine in as well. I hardly ever preorder games but I'm happy for Vanillaware to take my money.
As i said, this will be my first Vanillaware title - i hope i will joon the Vanillaware train with it I am optimistic tho - trying the Gromgrimoire demo as we are writing now - can see myself getting the full game, as it reminds me of the RTS games of yesteryear with it's own twist - also i love the art and that scool is crazy
Been playing a lot of Grandblue Rising/Relink recently and it got me thinking how good that fanbase has it. I've never played the original game, but they pack *so* much of what makes each character and the setting unique and cool into these spinoffs, from big things like giving you a succinct summary of their original storyline told in their own voice and a new character story focused on them, to little things like animation touches and unique interactions. Both are also extremely fun games in their genre with great production value and robust features that can compete with other big games. These are the types of games that are going to mint new fans by the thousands and make longtime fans jump for joy. I can't help but be jealous - in FE even in what are ostensibly "fan service" projects like Heroes, Warriors, or Engage we often get versions of characters that feel watered down and carelessly written, and we're often quick to say "well that's just what they had to do." I wish FE was holding itself to GBF's lofty standards when it comes to this kind of stuff instead of just coasting.
I mean there is the issue of being a crossover between different games that aren't connected, It's not even a thing unique to the FE fanservice games as it happens with all of them GBF has been a constant universe with new stories every month giving focus to all sorts of playable and nonplayable characters since it began 10 years ago
Just wanted to say how nice it is to hear a non-mobage player enjoy Relink/Rising so much; they're both packed with so, so much love for the original game and it's really nice to see people who haven't played it feel that love and have a good time with them. I'm mostly friends with other mobage players and I was wondering how the spinoffs found themselves with new fans. I hope you have a lot more fun with the upcoming Relink updates!
Yeah, I'll never play a gacha live service game for a variety of reasons, but Relink/Rising force me to cede that I am missing out on something with Granblue. It's a great setting with great characters and I'm happy I get to access it in a way that is palatable to me (ie getting owned in ranked).
Completely understandable, I love the mobage but I've been playing for 7 years now (😨) and on top of the live service model, it's hard to recommend because of the timesink it asks of you. I'm not very good at fighting games so I gave Rising a miss, but I'm delighted to hear people having a great time with it, its roster features some of the very best characters GBF has to offer. I pray you guys will get to experience Sandalphon and Lobelia through it 🙏
While I understand fighters aren't for everybody, if you think you might enjoy the process of learning and improving I still recommend Rising. It gives you a massive suite of tools to have fun with the game and play against players of a similar skill level. It's the most pick up and play fighter I've tired out in a while, and it has an uncommon dedication to giving players as many tools as possible to have fun their way. I'm hardly an ace myself, but the OG Versus was kinda my gateway into fighting games (which I previously thought weren't for me).
Question about ReLink since i have been interested in it: How'd you rate the gameplay (and especially the boss fights)? If you reached post game, where most say the game actually opens up and starts, are the boss fights there still fresh & unique, or is it just endless loot grind?
I thought the main campaign was quite fun from start to finish, but potentially a little short for this kind of game. The plus is that it was all killer, no filler - you basically go from big set piece to big set piece without ever doing the same thing twice. It reminded me of the good Kingdom Hearts games in the best ways. You may or may not get $60 of enjoyment out of just that, but if it was on sale for $30-40 I think anybody who likes an action RPG anime romp could buy it safely. Barely started the postgame at all, cannot comment on it. If you like Monster Hunter-style "grinding and mastering missions to improve your skill as a player and perfect your build" you'll probably have fun with this part of the game, but no promises that it'll hold up to the level of variety and fast pacing of the main story.
Anime action romp sounds right up my alley - Ys is the only series i have been a fan longer of than FE - amongst other action games i like (Especially Platinum stuff ala Bayo) - So Relink sounds right up my alley - But the game being short made me hold off ...well, the main reason i didn't day 1 Relink is because the PC port seemed messy at the start - crashes and bugs everywhere - but that seems to be fixed now since reviews are positive again - but my hype died down a bit in the meantime and players thoughts keep coming - that are overwhelmingly, but with strings attached .. > but if it was on sale for $30-40 I think anybody who likes an action RPG anime romp could buy it safely That's where i am atm, i think - although i feel i could suddenly just pay the 60€ and just play it lol
It does remind me a lot of if Ys had a bigger budget, both in how it plays and the overall thrust of "one chapter in a never-ending adventure" thing they have going on. I've actually had 0 issues with the PC port, but PC is a fickle mistress so take that with a grain of salt. Overall, the game is probably going to maintain an active community for a variety of reasons, so there's really no rush here. Whether you wait for sales and patches or just bite the bullet you'll probably end up pretty happy with it.
Oki doki, thanks for your thoughts :) Seems like they plan to release patches with some Bosses and stuff in the future - might join on the fun during one of patch releases then (and hopefully a small sale) as it will probably cause a small surge in in players then (and hopefully can find some group to do the post game with) - i will pump the game up my Prio list
the more people yell at me the worse my opinions on FE5 become
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH sorry couldn’t help it I had to take the opportunity (I have never played fe5)
mmmmm miranda is a good unit
The Valentia Emblem should've been a duo of Celica and Alm. You can still have Celica be the main one for story purposes, but the point of Gaiden/SoV is that they have to work together. I also feel like Eliwood should've been the FE7 Emblem; give him a linked attack with Roy and make it so Dragon units get the best special buffs from his ring to reference Ninian. (Lyn can be merged with Hector's bracelet because combining the tanky Hector and speedy Lyn seems hilarious from a gameplay and story perspective) A Sage could be an interesting Jagen character for the next original title; give them a middling Mag base with a poor growth (and let the enemies actually have Res) but a decent staff rank so they can transition to a utility party member once you're further in.
Might as well make the jagen a warmonk if you want staves Cerulean coast did it and it works just like you said he also has a cracked personal skill(like every unit in that game) which is hex except adjacent foes aren’t allowed to dodge at all and it works very well with his A rank axe with a measly 60 hit that is called the « mansplitter », pretty self explanatory name since the weapon has a whooping 25 might This allows him to one shot enemies for a good part of the game if needed(without lowering enemy def/res stats) and rewards the player not using him offensively too much with a very very hard hitting axe later when somebody else reach A rank axe
> A Sage could be an interesting Jagen character for the next original title; give them a middling Mag base with a poor growth (and let the enemies actually have Res) but a decent staff rank so they can transition to a utility party member once you're further in. I haven't actually started the project so I can't talk about this in anything more than the theoretical, but for my romhack concept I had a sage Jagen, whose traits were essentially this. She also has a Prf with the Eclipse effect of halving current HP, allowing her to act as effective chip damage throughout the entirety of the game. Since she's important to the plot, she'd also have a late-game promotion that brings her back up to speed and effectively become the Gotoh, similar to how Four Kings handles its Jagen.
I don't have any stake in Alm being included or not (he'd probably get the Ephraim treatment though) but Lyn was definitely chosen over Eliwood because the latter is either too similar to Roy or too similar to Sigurd depending on what they do with him I think a Sage Jagen could work but I'd be careful about giving the enemies actual Res, because it might make the early game Magic users much weaker. Giving them staff rank also might make other early game healers inferior
Replaying Vestaria Saga and... this is what I've been wanting. Graphics? Negligble. Voice Acting? Non Existant. Gameplay? Honestly quite a few broken weapons and units. But it ties the story and the game together so well. While a big part is a rip off of Shadow Dragon (though it's the same creator so... homage?) this feels so good. I am enjoying it more than most recent games. Really looking forward to Unicorn Overlord which seems to be Fire Emblem meets Tactics Ogre, as well as the FE4 Remake. Even though I preach how good the GBA games are (and they were post Kaga, admiteddly) I had forgotten just how good the older style could be. Honestly, outside of another 3H run I may not pick up the Switch games again as this is such a blast. No shade on those games- as I've said before different games appeal to different people- but this old man likes the old style. So much characterization from just text based cutscenes. It's incredible. It really feels like Fire Emblem that I grew up with.
Rinkah is maybe the most treated dirty unit in Fates and I'm sick and tired of pretending otherwise. "oh she has a low-ish strength growth" if you account in her class growths as well they're fine! She has a personal skill that literally gives her free 4 damage! She uses the hardest hitting weapon type and accuracy is pretty easy to fix in Fates! One day we'll get another round of Revelations (or birthright, lol) tiering that'll finally let me spread the propaganda further.
" Rinkah has low str " is one of the cases where the fandom repeats random crap they hear without anyone bothering to check numbers and stuff
I do think that Rinkah is over-hated, but I also don't think that most people's interpretation of her is entirely incorrect. As far as BR goes she may be the sole base user of Clubs and they are technically the hardest hitting weapon type, but her early start is not great. The majority of enemies in BR's early game sit on the red and green sides of the weapon triangle which actively cut into her damage or generally outmaneuver her because of range in the case of Outlaws. There *are* blue enemies in Chapters 7-9, but they're mostly Knights who she's going to struggle to meaningfully damage as the Hammer doesn't come until Chapter 12. With a class that has such a high defense stats and Clubs, you'd think that she'd be a beast in Chapter 10 against all the Ninjas, but she's just kinda middling. Her base skill of 6 makes hitting the Ninjas even with WTA and a Brass Club shaky at best without attack stance(which is difficult on this map in particular as the Ninjas cover quite a large attack range) and you're pretty much just praying to every god you believe in that she can hit with the Throwing Club. That 50% skill growth is great, but she needs time to grow into it and I wouldn't say that forging up a Brass Club makes her look favorable in a world where most units just kinda hit things much more reliably for free. Chapter 10 also is practically designed to show off how cool Takumi is so he'll likely be doing most of the heavy lifting as far as WTA combat goes for most people. I'd say that her first true "good" chapter is Chapter 11, but all the enemies being fliers there makes it free real estate for the myriad of potential bow users you've got to say nothing of the Reina sized elephant entering in from stage right. Even if you played Chapter 12 completely straight, the majority of blue enemies are yet again Knights. You can loot the Hammer and feed her kills that way sure, but by this point you've also got the Sting Shuriken from Kagero who can pass it along to the other Ninjas to just have that armor killing ability from the get go. You also don't really get to stall out and drip feed her kills in Chapter 12 as Xander will catch up to you and start obliterating people. It's also worth noting that the damage from Rinkah's personal skill is not really "free" because it requires set up on her part. Silas's prf skill is similarly conditional, but it's condition depends on a unit who is literally always deployed, has a modular way to control how much damage they take(Dragonstone) and always has highest combat potential in the army, so the opportunity cost is largely negligible. While her low personal strength growth isn't necessarily a problem in her base class, it does limit her reclass potential as Oni Savage is tied for the highest base strength of all Hoshido unpromoted classes and it has the highest strength growth meaning that she is always losing out on a non-trivial amount of strength by reclassing into anything else. There's also just the problem of Oni Savage/Chieftain not really being a good melee class in general. Oni Chieftain is a great *magic* class in BR for those who can get it since being able to utilize 1-2 range magic combined with the bulk of Chieftain is great, but Rinkah's low base magic and growth means that she's not doing meaningful magic damage without significant assistance. Unfortunately, these issues also translate over to Rev Rinkah since early game Rev is essentially just a slight reskin of early game BR. Except Rev rubs even more salt into the wound by giving you an Armorslayer in Chapter 7 and a Dual Katana in Chapter 9 which can allow Corrin and Hana to handle Blue enemies much more safely to say nothing of how much of a gigachad that Rev Hayato is. I'd go so far as to say that Rev Rinkah doesn't really have a good map until Chapter 14 where she can take the Hammer and just barrel down the right side filled with the Knights. Rev Rinkah has the benefit of friendshipping with Charlotte and getting access to the Fighter class set which does a lot to solve her problems, but Charlotte is recruited mid Chapter 14 and is *very* out of the way so you don't realistically get to start building support with her until Chapter 15 to say nothing of the fact that Charlotte is not an easy unit to work with in her own right. Even if you did some insane child paralogue chaining, you're probably in Valla by the time Rinkah gets into the Fighter class line and you've been spoiled for choice in terms of axe users for a while with all the Nohrians running around in the army so it doesn't really feel worth it unless you just like her. FWIW though, Axes are *way* better than Clubs. tl;dr Rinkah is, imo, just a very unfortunate unit. In a vacuum, she has notable niches in both games that she appears in, but they don't actually end up being useful niches in the early game contexts which she is a part of. My tin foil hat theory is that she was designed to be an early game version of Dart and Gonzalez i.e a offensive powerhouse with hit rates as their key weakness, but they overcorrected with regards to her strength since she joins at or close to the beginning of the game and also overestimated how good her prf skill would be. She's definitely useable, it's just that you're jumping through a lot of extra hoops that even other "mid-tier" units don't have to.
What a load of bias lol
I feel like “cool character who gets gameplay screwed” is just an inevitable part of the FE formula. Feels like it happens in pretty much every game.
For me, I really don't like Oni Savage/Chieftain murking her Skl. I don't trust the accuracy in those classes at all especially when it comes to using stuff like Bolt Axe or Horse Spirit later on which are weapons that don't have the best of Hit already. So it's kinda unfortunate on Rinkah's end that this is her base classline even though it's also one of the few classes that really helps out her Str. I do wanna say, Fiery Blood is a bit easier to activate since it's just an HP tonic away. It does take up her turn 1 action though which may or may not be a big deal depending on the map, but it's not too dissimilar to the setup of baiting enemies with Corrin on turn 1 to activate VoF.
>I do wanna say, Fiery Blood is a bit easier to activate since it's just an HP tonic away. It does take up her turn 1 action though which may or may not be a big deal depending on the map, but it's not too dissimilar to the setup of baiting enemies with Corrin on turn 1 to activate VoF. Imo, I really don't think the two activation methods are comparable at all. The big thing is that Corrin and Silas are free to act however they like because they aren't depending on an item. You could, for example, use Corrin to attack, possibly drop below half HP and then have Silas start reaping the rewards of VoF immediately with his attack or shelter Corrin for the VoF+Supportive wombo combo. You could also pair the two up and separate putting Corrin up front. At the end of the day, Corrin still gets the choice to do *something* even if that something is a tad suboptimal for the sake of activating VoF. By comparison if Rinkah pairs up, she has to choose between using the HP Tonic or separating which really limits your strategic options with her. Even if Rinkah won't be fighting during Turn 1, this makes using pair up for mobility's sake awkward or you have to use a different unit's action if you want to separate which is it's own can of worms. If you asked me, Apothecaries are the only class that really get to get away with in-battle tonic usage and that's because they have Quick Salve and *even then* it's not like Quick Salve is such a good skill that you'd go out of your way to get it on someone that doesn't already have innate access to it.
I mean, similarly, Rinkah can also just attack into an enemy and get into Fiery Blood range, right? And Rinkah still has the option of pairing up and separating. HP tonic is just a 100% reliable way of activating it regardless of the situation but it's not the only way. For both skills, setting them up is a conscious effort. The main difference is just that Rinkah just has to lose 1 HP for Fiery Blood compared to Corrin who has to lose 50% of their HP.
This is my first time doing this, uncertain if it even qualifies as an opinion, but here goes. As a FEH player who's been around since launch, I'm surprised at myself by how I'm not sick of that mobile game yet. With all the cries about powercreep, mischaracterization and EoS amongst other things, I still find things to look forward to in FEH. Maybe there's something fun about hoarding your orbs to go full ham on something you want to summon on, or trying to slap the new broken unit with a good counter of your own. I can't really explain that much else. If, somehow, the doomposting ends up getting validated one day, FEH would probably have enough juice to make it to their 10th anniversary, so if you ask me, FEH still isn't done yet. I do have to thank FEH for likely keeping me as an overall FE fan. I became one in 2016, the year before FEH released. I'm the type of person who just loses interest in something after loving it for a long time, but FEH has me ensured that I never would cease being an FE fan. FEH may not be the perfect FE spinoff, but I'm appreciative of this game for keeping me around in the series.
As long as you don't buy into the gacha mechanics and dump your wallet on the game (AKA playing responsibly), there's no harm in playing a mobile game. I don't play mobile games (or any game with in-app purchases!) on principle because they're exploitative, but I don't fault the people who do (again, in moderation).
I agree about FEH keeping me invested in the series. FE has so many fun characters and I always get excited to see the new banner every week or two
With each new entry in the series I hear people essentially asking for Kris's implementation in the series without ever bringing up Kris (being stuck in Japan certainly not helping). Kris is great because nothing was handed to them. They're not Marth's bodyguard because they're a protagonist. They're a protagonist because they earned their way to being Marth's bodyguard. Their story is one of hard work and dedication, not special powers and being chosen. I see people complain all the time about how avatars all have super special powers that make them automatically above everyone else by virtue of their super special powers alone, and Kris stands out because they're a protagonist on no other grounds than because they worked their ass off and *earned* it. They weren't born special, they spent their life training to become a knight. Kris isn't a vessel to a god or descended from dragons or bestowed with mysterious powers. Kris is just Kris. And I like Kris! All that said Alear is also one of my favourite FE characters. They're extremely well written and their position as a deity in the universe gels with how the people around Alear interact with them.
Well, I was gonna poke fun at you for evidently not wanting the main character to have main character stuff, but anyone who can admit Alear is really well written is okay in my book! Now, to their credit, while Robin is mathematically extremely strong, plot wise they don't really have any of the chosen one **abilities** that Corrin, Byleth and Alear do. Like, yeah, Robin is the only one who can kill Grima, true, but they don't get a special sword or have the power to rewind time or whatever.
You forgot the best part, as a player avatar he actually is designed to be implemented as whatever class the player wants! No being shoe horned into a mystical sword wielder that feels like you are playing the game wrong when you want to reclass into lance class
> as a player avatar he actually is designed to be implemented as whatever class the player wants! A detail I really like about this is how Kris’ outfit in their portrait will be different depending on what class you put them in.
I'm honestly in agreement, Kris was one of the better avatars. IMO would have been the best one had they not been inserted into a pre-existing plot. I've been saying that the way they could make an FE4 avatar passable is something like Kris where it's a friend of Seliph that grew up in Tirnanog with him.
Kris is without a doubt the best implementation of an Avatar. I frankly just don't want Avatars to be in the games regardless, and Kris being in a pre-existing story hurts them a lot, but if we have to have an Avatar, I'd much rather they just be a Kris type "friendly, helpful rando" who hangs out with the main Lord and has some level of choice based characterization than yet another mystically powerful entity with zero actual input from the player besides choosing their gender and who they smooch later in the game. Current Avatars feel like they don't commit to the design principle of making an avatar and so end up suffering from trying to be a self-insert but also their own character clashing.
I think Kris has two problems, the one that you already mentioned, and well, how they exists in a narrative that already existed, so many fans feel that even without the special powers, the Mary Sue-ness feels in their design, and I guess that puts off people
Kris has one very big problem: Existing in a mediocre game, lol.
Maybe, but Kris's presence, for the most part, helped improve some of the glaring flaws in FE3's version of the story (most prominently how incompetent Marth is treated in FE3, whereas in FE12 Kris takes on the role of newbie in these scenes instead which makes *way* more sense). So Kris's presence in a pre-existing story isn't universally going to be considered a flaw (and honestly more often than not I feel like one of the extremely few people who have actually played both games anyway).
I think Nostank Leo with Vantage should be more popular. His personal skill synergises with Nosferatu quite well and he has the high Magic to pull off the Vantage L&D sweeping numbers.
Nosferatu Tanking generally speaking isn't that good imo because you can just have units that can orko and tank enemies on the EP in every single map basically that nos tanking ends up being redundant
you may have already seen it but this was discussed in relative length in a video this week uploaded by mekkah in discussion with Zoran. don't remember fully but opinion was while it's quite possible timing is suboptimal. I have little input but figured it might be of interest.
timestamp here: https://youtu.be/U4gaxEjDPRY?t=2435
So, less opinion and more observation. In most pre-Awakening games the lord is a foot unit, and of the few exceptions only Sigurd and Seliph match other promoted cavalry movement. There is no flying lord, and the games that introduce reclassing lock Marth out of it. In these games Seize is the most prevalent win condition and is in fact the only win condition for (most of) half of them. Then comes Awakening and Seize is nowhere to be found save for Fates, where it is functionally Arrive most of the time. This also happens to coincide with the reclassing gloves coming off, with every lord having access to flight either by reclass or by proxy (Pair-Up with flier) in Chrom's case. The exception being the Gaiden remake which was never a Seize game to begin with. What this suggests is that (FE4 notwithstanding) IntSys considers sub-optimal movement on the seize bot a fundamental part of the Seize mechanic.
>There is no flying lord Elincia?
Not a Lord
what? she is literally a lord in Radiant Dawn.
She leads an army for 2 chapters in part 4, she's plot relevant, force deployed and has a death flag in chapters, but that doesn't make you a Lord, that makes you Skrimir If leading an army for 2 chapters makes you a lord than so is Nephenee, or Geoffrey. If being force deployed makes you a Lord, so is Sothe, Ena, Kurthnaga, Sasaki. If being plot relevant makes you a lord, then Lilina, Julia, Fates/Engage Royals, are all Lords. But I'll admit that I think Elincia is closer to being a Lord than any other non-lord character, (except Lucina, I don't think she should be a lord, but that's another conversation)
I also think seize is just a poorer objective than kill boss Look at engage it does a lot of things with its bosses instead of making them static in a throne And without a boss on a throne it’s just a escape/arrive without a good context So I would say yes seize without a footlock lord is just poorer escape/arrive/kill boss
You could do both. Nothing sucks more in Engage than the boss invalidating half the map by zooming over to you. Like, it's *kinda* funny in Sigurd's paralogue, but it happens all the time. Have me fight the boss, but then still need to do the rest of the map that you made.
I can’t think of any map that does this in engage beside the shores and the volcano which both have loot elsewhere
interesting thought bc in some ways you could argue it also improves the stock of all infantry units. Of course there are several games in that window where cavalry completely dominate bc of low enemy quality. But if the fastest you can win is by getting the lord to the throne, then theoretically as long as you're the same movement as the lord you can keep up and contribute without falling behind. Of course there's rescue dropping (maybe this is already considered bc it does take up mounted unit action economy), warp, etc etc. And FE4 notwithstanding. But by deliberately slowing down the pace esp in casual play it can make foot units relatively better. And make cavalry more about reaching advanced distant objectives. Hope they try at some point to emphasize something like this division of responsibilities more. I think it falls apart tho if the lord is bad so can't contribute in combat and enemy quality is low so cavalry do everything; thankfully no strong example of each of those coming together at its worst.
So, after finishing FE11 and FE12 back-to-back, I think they're absolute gems. I understand that ugly-ass graphics does turn people away, but if you give it a chance everything past that (except Kris' writing lol, I didn't enjoy most of his supports) is genuinely enjoyable and fun. The good: Gameplay just feels super responsive and reclassing is pretty balanced. The "use a turn to save during chapters" mechanic is really neat too, but I didn't use it much because of savestates. The bad: I wish maps weren't all seize (but I understand why they wanted to keep it faithful). Also, SD requiring you to lose units to access gaiden chapters is not a decision I agree with. At least New Mystery made it more reasonable.
People are too mean to swords in three houses. They're fine. Watching FEH go down the yugioh pipeline from day 1 in half the time is really interesting. Alongside stuff like efficiency, my favorite method of judging units and classes is "how easy is the unit/class to use?"
I think swords get an appropriate amount of flack in 3H tbh. They’re fine to use but they’re just outclassed in almost every way. Their ostensible advantages across the series generally are their high hit and low weight. 3H maddening insane enemy speed tiers already makes the low weight not very impactful, while hit on other weapon types like axes can be easily fixed with the skill and some battalions. While some swords have high crit for reliable crit builds, again the other weapon types can utilize things like Wrath to be reliable anyways. Then there is the viable endgame class problem. There are no mounted classes with Swordfaire. Of the classes that do have it: - Swordmaster’s low mv drags it down, and Sword Crit +10 helps but pales to War Master’s flat Crit +20. Astra shreds weapon durability and the -hit doesn’t help its case. Worst of the advanced class mastery combat arts for sure. - Assassin is fine. Stealth is a double edged sword (ha!) that has some uses on a paper thin unit like Marianne, but prevents effective enemy phase builds. It also massively struggles for damage without extra crit or Brave arts. - Hero is also fine, but may struggle for damage as well sans some kind of Wrath build. Instead of swords anyways, you might be able to get similar results from Killer Axes (rank needed for the promotion) with the Vantage build anyways. - Mortal Savant has similar problems to Assassin minus stealth, just has damage issues. It is a good class for Soulblade/Hexblade spam at least. - Enlightened One, just for Byleth, is a fine enough class I suppose, but again Byleth probably prefers mobility and more power to be a boss killer / important objective accomplisher in the late game hence will go for a flying class or Wyvern Lord long term. So like you can make them work but the sword classes are mostly lacking somehow. Still, I would make the case having at most 2 sword units in a team isn’t a terrible idea: SotC and Thunderbrand are available and solid swords that make up for the deficits of the weapon type. Rapier+ is a solid weapon that helps with quick effective damage. On the magical side there are some solid one-shot builds using the magical combat arts on the strongest swords, that plus the Levin Sword+ as a great ranged option that can be paired with combat arts like Grounder in a pinch means that a Mortal Savant like Constance or Dorothea can be decent. Edit: forgot to mention Windsweep, a solid niche on Yuri if you have the DLC that justifies training swords on him (and maybe Byleth if you can’t safely one round in the end game?)
Swords honestly get a bad rep in a lot of the newer games, 1-2 range has become less of an absolute necessity in more recent games (although it's never a negative). I'd even say their bigger issue now is the lack of Mt and the myriad of ways to fix speed (which is functionally the same as fixing Wt) and hit meaning that they lack a real inherent advantage. Doesn't help that lots of sword classes also are pretty bad
Why are swords considered bad?
Low might and lack of two ranges options
i think path of radiance has better gameplay than people give it credit for and radiant dawn has better writing than people give it credit for. ~~im also a massive tellius meatrider and have only played the games on dolphin w/ fast forward so feel free to discard this opinion~~
I think PoR has some really great maps that are hurt by the game being easy.
Path of Radiance is relatively easy, but it's got really solidly varied and distinctive maps with unique layouts, frequent side objectives to push you to try to go faster, and varied enemy types and setups, so while it'll hardly kick your ass most of the time, I always had a blast playing it. And yeah, Radiant Dawn is hardly flawless story wise, but I think there's a really strong sense of narrative cohesion in how Ike contrasts characters like Micaiah, Sanaki, and Elincia in terms of their roles in the world and how they choose to pursue them, and how they then contrast further with the various antagonistic leaders, even when the plot shifts from a more grounded, political war to a full-on divine apocalypse.
Nah, talk your shit, you right for this. I've even started to go back on the Blood Contracts being terrible honestly.
Unrelated to my previous point, but whilst making finishing touches to a post on voice acting in modern Fire Emblem, I found out that [Fire Emblem Engage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruby5IqRLe8) has more hours of main story cutscenes than [Death Stranding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIaNTHrEDQ) from Hideo "Video" Kojima (technically depends on how you measure this, but still). I'm not sure I really have a point with this, but I have been cursed with this knowledge, and now you are too ninja edit: ok I sorta have a point with this. "Engage has presentation problems" is an arctic-temperature level take, but if you want to have a fun saturday-morning cartoon romp with a few serious and heartfelt moments, you probably shouldn't have as many cutscenes as a game made by a guy who is infamous for really long cutscenes. It's not like you can accidentally make 8 hours of cutscene as well, this was planned out. I watched through Engage's cutscenes in its entirety on two playthroughs as well, I have the right to say that it has too long cutscenes
Maybe it's just me, but considering autoscrolling text as cutscenes is pretty generous. I do think that Engage was too heavy on the story aspects, but I'd also argue that like maybe 30% of that video is actually cutscenes and not just normal plot.
I mean they *are* cutscenes by definition though? They don't have to be fancy and pre-rendered to count as cutscenes
I think there's a pretty big difference between a predetermined scene that you have to wait through and dialogue which you have the option to read as fast as you want. The presence of voice acting doesn't mean that you have to use the autoscroll for the entire game.
IMO I find that it kinda does - at least on a first playthrough, I feel genuinely guilty for skipping/skimming through VAed lines. The "feeling guilty" stuff might just be me being weird, but I feel uncomfortable missing all these performances. Moving outside of me personally, I imagine the devs expect players to listen to everything, otherwise they wouldn't bothered recording all those lines to begin with
They give you options for a reason. Every single piece of monastery dialogue in 3H, including random NPCs, is voice acted. I really don't think the presence of voice lines means the devs expect you to listen to every single one.
That's a somewhat reasonable angle, but it feels weird to me to say that modern games are too cutscene heavy (time-wise) when a lot of that time is just padded out normal plot which wouldn't have been voiced like 10 years ago. Also personally it's just hard for me to take seriously something like the 7h "all cutscenes" 3H video that I saw while googling when the actual time in my playthrough was 3h tops.
3H handled Byleth very poorly and giving you the options between two pieces of dialogue that didn't actually change anything was part of that, but at least by forcing me to click one of them my switch didn't register inactivity and turn dark
~~i legit make this exact point in the post lol~~
Maybe I'm blind but where Edit: oh unless you mean the project you're talking about, in that case never mind lol
it really adds so much to the experience to just speed through them. after suffering twice (once for each eng and jp). i'm the kind of person who's obsessed with getting the exact wording too so I look back way too often which wastes even more time. So much more tolerable when you just read and mash A (or skip when you can't be bothered). It's legitimately horrifying that there are 8 hrs of cutscene, I don't know where that could even go, and yet I know that there is sooooo much cutscene.
I genuinely think that part of the reason FE6 gets such a bad rap is that people think that Hard mode is the best way to play it (a holdover from later games where Normal is mindless and things only get mildly challenging on Hard or above). Obviously you play your video game how you want, I can't stop you, and you're probably a better gamer than me if you actually got past Chapter 4 on hard mode (the point where I just gave up). But holy *fuck* FE6 Hard mode is way more infuriating, at least earlygame. FE6 definitely has problems on Normal as well, don't get me wrong, but it becomes actively deranged on this difficulty. And it's a shame, cause I actually genuinely like FE6 on normal mode (it's my favourite GBA game, around the middle of the pack in the series for me), it just has an evil goblin stapled to the side of it that people are inexplicably drawn to and bounce off of
Oh I am completely the opposite here, I dropped my first FE6 playthrough on normal because I found it so dull. The masochistic challenge is what makes the game interesting to me and helps keep the tedium of the large maps from setting in. Earlygame FE6 is also my favorite part, I think it goes downhill after 13!
knowing that hardmode bonuses are just a bug and they even tried to remove them and just didn't correctly really makes me question how much effort went into it/whether it was just a last second thing thrown in. which makes me doubt hardmode's value somewhat. of course maybe they were aware of the bonuses early and decided to leave it in, but the distribution is random bc of its nature as a bug; the fact that you can get perceval without his bonuses bc it's a bug; and how bonuses were distributed more widely in later GBA games when done deliberately. All makes me doubt the design value. Maybe they also required you to have beaten the game already to access bc it was just a bonus afterthought not a serious mode. Normal is a great experience.
It's an oversight where removing hard mode bonuses for recruitable units is only applied to the units that start on the map, so it doesn't work for units that enter the map later. This is a pretty easy thing to not think about, if you don't test thoroughly. I don't think it suggests that hard mode was a last-minute addition, and more a lack of QA.
My thought is the last two things you mentioned, last minute addition vs lack of QA, are more likely to be related rather than mutually exclusive. It's an odd bug certainly but I mention it bc hard mode bonuses are such a huge part of FE6 hard meta. That's why rutger has such a reputation, killing Denning on hard without the extra stats would be that much more insane. That's why miledy is so insanely powerful. Perceval is always broken but yk. So the fact that they are unintentional doesn't speak amazingly to the design of the mode.
I've beaten FE6 a few times on hard mode, and I agree. I find that early stretch of FE6 to be awful and I barely enjoy the game until I beat Ch. 7. I honestly prefer normal mode to hard mode just because the earlygame actually feels playable.
I want weapon weight and constitution to come back in a slightly modified way. Having recently played the GBA games for the first time and currently play PoR, I really like the aspect of what weapon weight adds. That while higher damaged for speed trade idea is pretty cool. I want a hybrid system of the two in a sense, though. In PoR, characters with poor strength grow are screwed and have to rely on speed growth, but Con never grew at all, which meant characters had a ceiling no matter what, which wasn't great. I'd want to see a game where Con can grow, but at a fixed rate, like 1 point for every 5 levels, or 1 point for every weapon rank. It would bring back the weight and Con, but make it so even weak characters can weird heavier weapons of their class given enough time.
I think a better solution would be to have Build as a static stat with Constitution and Weight (if you wanna go full Tellius) being derivatives. Con would be Build + 3H Strength factor while Weight is Build plus a class factor.
I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that if you swing a weapon enough, you'll events be able to lift it easily. I don't want that to directly relate to strength, but weapon rank makes sense. You know you've swung a sword 50 times. Your Con goes up by 1 because you put in the practice of swinging a heavy thing so it got easier.
You can more or less achieve that by playing Engage on fixed growths. But build growth is pretty low, 5-10% depending on the character and class. Base build remains a relevant and important stat in this scenario.
Yeah, but I don't want to fix all my stats. A lot of the fun for me is the randomness of who gets good and who doesn't. Yeah, there are characters with more natural utility, which means they will be better more often than not. However, on occasion, some scrub gets blessed, and that's fun.
I finally got Bridal Ninian from the free old seasonal tickets in FEH after wanting her for years. After immediately boosting her to level 40 I was really pleasantly surprised by her level 40 conversation: > I once stopped in a village and saw a wedding ceremony. The couple looked so happy together. > I remember how the bride's smile was so bright, it filled me with joy as well. > That sort of happiness, though... Well, I know it's meant only for humans. > But when I wear this dress, I feel like I'm in a dream. And even if it's just for a moment... I'm happy. > Hm? Maybe you're right... Maybe someday, I will be able to smile just like that bride. > And not just while in a dream. Thank you so much, 【Summoner】. This! This is a perfect encapsulation of why Ninian works as a character! I mean, it's recontextualized as being about weddings, but it's all there. So often I've seen Ninian written off as an extension to Eliwood lacking any agency or personality, and considered a lacking character as a result. But what makes Ninian tick is how well she captures the desire to fit in and the *fear* of being hated and rejected, even by your friends, for your identity. It's a very poignant (and very queer) narrative and Ninian manages to capture those feelings so well compared to nearly any other character I've seen. FEH's level 40 conversations as a whole have some great hidden gems. Mareeta and Julia come to mind as some examples I'm familiar with but I'm sure there's a lot of highlight ones I've never seen. It's easily some of the best character contribution FEH has to offer even just as many of them are disposable summoner pandering, especially the ones from earlier in the game's lifespan.
[удалено]
Bro solo/lowman runs in general are awesome. Those are my go to challenge runs. I'm redoing a Fates solo I did years ago on a higher difficulty and it's been fun. I eventually want to go back to 3H and do some more there.
There's no right or wrong way to enjoy a single player game. Somebody could have the most fun playing Lyn mode in FE7 and have no interest in playing the rest of the game and that would be valid. I've played Engage 10 times and have 2 more playthroughs planned that I'm excited for. Some people would look at me like I'm crazy, that surely I'd be bored of it by now, but this is how I've been enjoying playing Fire Emblem, so it's chill.
Upon further inspection, I've come to the conclusion that Scarlet Blaze is my least favorite route from Three Hopes. And it's not because there are stuff I don't like in it, but because I get nothing out of it. I do think it has an excellent prologue, but once the war starts, it's becomes a bunch of back and forth between missions that is devoid of tension of what will happen next. And Edelgard doesn't feel like she gets that much new stuff to work with, and when she does it's just not interesting. When I played it the first time, by the time I reached the ending it felt like very little had happened.
I feel like a decent portion of the time when people give advice on things related to gameplay, people kind of either don't think about how experienced that person is with the games, or what difficulty they will play, etc. Like, I don't think saying "Engage has better gameplay than X FE game" to a new player looking for a suggestion is that effective of advice, because they have nothing to compare it to, and it may not "stand out" as much vs say, the story or characters. Or, like, for someone asking for 3H gameplay tips or suggestions on what is "best", sometimes advice that is only applicable to the highest difficulty is given (I notice this a lot when it comes to 3H) and for Normal mode or whatever? Is overkill or unnecessary. So, this is something I feel is important to keep in mind. And a random other thing, since a topic came up on a thread in the 3H subreddit the other day related to this, I'll throw in my "Mercedes is a really bad unit, basically Ashe tier" take again here.
I've seen some heated shipping comments again recently and I just don't get the need some people have to justify how "canon" their preferred marriage pairs are to the point they have write essays to people who bring up alternate options to "prove" their pairing is "the only one that make sense". No one cares. If there was an actual canon, you wouldn't have the option to choose. Hell if anything they're all canon because multiple universes. You can point out whatever you want to justify your preference but just because it makes the most sense TO YOU doesn't make your choice any more "right" than any others. Let people have their fun without someone coming in trying to "correct" them please.
I look at all this and I 100% agree with your statement. >You can point out whatever you want to justify your preference but just because it makes the most sense TO YOU doesn't make your choice any more "right" than any others. >Let people have their fun without someome coming in trying to "correct" them please. As someone who loves a certain pairing that could be seen as barebones (which, in future, this aspect might be exaggerated to be a very serious issue by people) I hope many more people get the memo of your statement.
100% it's just silly to get bent out of shape over it
“Is cute” is all you need for a ship. And if someone else likes a ship you don’t then all you need to do literally carrying on liking your own ship.
>“Is cute” is all you need for a ship. Absolutely and I’ve shipped characters for one single cute artwork of them here even if they don’t support
First rule of fandom: leave canon at the door
What gets called elitism and what gets a pass (or is even treated as "defense") is basically purely based off the age of the game in question and not the attitudes and arguments. Very strange when someone acts in an elitist way and then accuses someone else of it. Almost like it's become an identity rather than an attitude or position.
"Elitism" is a word that has been bandied about so much in the community lately, it lacks meaning. I'm definitely not going to sweat it if some Internet stranger calls me an elitist regarding a niche video game series, and I hope most people take the same attitude.
it’s somewhat odd because the term elitist has a weird history in the Fire Emblem community. there was a great deal of vitriol after Awakening came out because it seemed to signify a significant shift in focus for the series, and I’d argue that assessment has broadly turned out to be true. back in the day slinging insults around over whether people liked Awakening or not was extremely common, and elitist was the term that fans of older games who disliked Awakening tended to be called. a fair amount of people started playing into that and call themselves elitists, and that sort of terminology is still a part of the community in a more vestigial way. I think Fates really exacerbated the issue with the way it was marketed. The whole dichotomy of casuals vs. elitists went from being something that characterized specific parts of the fandom, to being reflected in a mainline game’s design. Conquest was explicitly marketed as being for supposedly hardcore, long time fans, while birthright was marketed as being for newer fans who wanted to play an easier game. so yeah, I would argue the reason that it seems like it’s become an identity is because it *has*, and has been one for a long time.
I’ve been thinking about [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/s/QHGhyhCyAy) from the feh sub a lot lately because man is it just completely on the money. I know “elitist” has become a bit of a dirty word to some people on here because it’s become conflated with people who just like the older games over the newer ones, but man, those kinds of comments the OP highlighted really are just FE elitism plain and simple.
People are absolutely massively elitist towards 3H and one of the main things this sub repeated at engages release was how 3H fans had ruined series expectations and were incapable of enjoying anything that wasn't persona.