Fire Emblem
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Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
I know that feeling. My Mom used to get mad at people for mistaking my gender constantly.
Sure.
I think the switch to humor/slice of life for the supports genuinely benefits the 3 lord characters. Most of them have a fair amount of involvement/dramatic development in the plot, so the comedic supports do a good job of rounding them out and making them feel more colorful imo. As much as I like 7, Lyn and Hector didn't really do anything outside of the prologue and HHM, and got only marginal development outside of supports.
The ones who really get the raw end of the stick are the supporting characters. I actually did find a large number of supports genuinely funny (though others fell flat), but overall it's true that the supporting characters just have no true development. There are some definite exceptions that remind me of the old support style, but it definitely could have used some work in general. One fix I might suggest, if they want to keep the more humor/slice of life oriented supports, would just be to add more tiers of supports. That way you have more time to balance out humor vs development.
One thing that really should have been axed though is the barracks. You literally hear the same quotes and quirks endlessly. I honestly dreaded going there.
As for gameplay, I think a lot of the ribs on reclassing are misplaced. The thing I've noticed about the game, is that the world map is handled a lot differently from Sacred Stones. Grinding is a crutch, not mandatory, and I think the mistake people make is that they hit a difficulty spike and start grinding to beat it instead of abusing reclassing/pairing to beat it smart style. The end result is that they over level, max all their stats, and break the game. I think if one plays Awakening from this perspective, keeping grinding to an absolute minimal or not at all, then pairing/reclassing balance out a LOT better and the game becomes much more enjoyable and smart.
Pairing is also a lot less broken then it first seems imo. In general, I founded unpaired units to generally be better for offense and defense, being able to attack more and cover more spots for defense. I only paired when I needed a specific combination of stats, needed to protect a weaker character, or was going to fight a boss with one solo character. I think it's already a pretty decent addition, and If letting enemies pair will only make the game better.
No magic triangle still sucks though imo.
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FastLikeLightning
Home-Town Zero
The main 3 are fine enough, though I felt that Chrom was shockingly bland through the first half, though he did get better.
(Also Heactor is badass and I refuse to say otherwise)
Agreed generally, while there were some funny ones it just felt overly bland in general. My favourite character in Awakening is probably Henry, because he balances out zany wackiness with some actual legitimate development.
I also noticed that you like to talk about the balance that FE games have between comedy and drama, and while that is true, I felt that Awakening was skewed much too far towards comedy, to the point where any sort of drama that happened felt jarring and out of place.
Okay, so I have a bone to pick with Pairing. In older FE games there was this option called 'Carry', which let units transport other units at a significant stat penalty. What this let you do, usually, is to either have your Generals carry your squishier units behind enemy lines while keeping them relatively danger-free, or have you Wyvern Riders carry your Generals to strategic choke points. Now, how about we completely remove the penalty to both movement and stats, give the carrier support buffs, let the characters build supports, and also have a chance for the carried units to give huge bonus attacks or completely negate damage. It's really busted.
And yes, grinding is very much the sub-optimal powergame play, but that doesn't really change the fact that it's cheap, easy to do, and still helpful, which is exasperated by the infinite levels that reclassing can net you, and yes, the game is more enjoyable when you don't do it, but then again, wouldn't RD be more fun if you didn't save mid-fight? There's no real reason not to except for forced challenge on yourself.
It's the main thing that pushes Dark Fliers from the best class in the game to HOLY SHIT THIS IS BUSTED
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Hmmm, I actually felt Chrom makes a great impression during the first arc. A lot goes on there, as opposed to the Wallhart arc which feels comparatively bland imo.
And yeah, don't get me wrong. Hector is amazing. But Eliwood moves the plot entirely, and you need supports or HMM to see Lyn and Hector to their fullest. Nothing wrong with this, just a different way of doing things.
Yeah, Awakening definitely tips the scales, intentionally, towards "lighter and softer". I don't really have a problem with this personally, I thought it was a nice change of pace (and a pretty dramatic shift too compared to the Radiant Series) and generally worked well, even if a little more time and effort could have netted them the best of both worlds.
Speaking of Henry, iirc, wasn't his support development changed quite a bit in the localization to be less melancholy? It honestly makes me wonder what changes the script went through with the other characters. I'm sure it's all more or less the same, but sometimes little subtle lines can make or break a character in general.
I generally found that carrying, while useful, wasn't really all that good. Pegasus bow weakness and Wyvern magic weakness generally made trying to push through to enemy lines a bit too risky to be all that common outside of heavy "island" type missions or other specific places. Those generals are generally (heh) better off on the front lines helping the rest of the team stay alive, then being riskily dropped in a place where they and their carrier could get easy swarmed by snipers and mages.
The thing that balances out pairing, imo, is that as strong as it is, strength in numbers is generally just better. Two units by themselves can already attack more and thus do more damage (even compared to the admittedly pretty big stat boosts on pairs), cover more holes to protect squishy units, and with the (pretty op itself) dual strike deal even bigger damage for smart placement. I think as your units get stronger, pairing feels more like a situational option then something that's truly overpowered and effective all the time.
I know my argument here might sound a bit hypocritical after my criticism of RD's saving, but I feel that "don't grind too much" is something pretty universal to rpg's. You either do things low level "like a real man!" or you grind a ton. Part of why I prefer the linear fe's by a huge margin. Classifying anything as "easy"/"hard"/"fair"/"cheap" is pretty much impossible if you take the viewpoint of "you can grind so you should. it's easy". Unlike the saving in RD, grinding also has something of a cost (time, although arguably you could lose just as much for failing missions repeatedly.).
Being able to grind in Awakening does make sense from a marketing perspective though. It basically allows the game two completely different playstyles suited to the different kind of players who might pick it up. Feeling hardcore? Got at it without grinding on hard. Nippon Icchi fanatic? Have fun going total ham and maxing every stat/support/marrying everyone. As much as I prefer the linear approach, if you're going to go for grinding, it's probably better to make it easy and optional then long and forced (see: any final fantasy tactics game).
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FastLikeLightning
Home-Town Zero
Chrom just felt like a less cool version of Ike character wise for the first bit. You're not wrong about the Walhart saga, though I'd argue that the Walhart saga was boring for all the characters.
Henry's support with Cherche I believe was altered in a subtle but important way in one line. Basically, in their supports, Cherche notices that Henry is hiding something about his personality. In the Japenese version, he more or less states that his cheery demeanor and lighthearted disposition towards death was a coping mechanism for him to deal with the fact that he was killing people at an uncanny pace while he was in the Pelagian military. In the translation, however, Henry is less tragic, his happiness not being him coping but his actual personality, which in my opinion is a huge downgrade.
Admittedly it's been a little while since I played PoR, but I remember on several occasions using Titania to drop Ike behind lines to deal with archers and mages.
I disagree. In my experience with Awakening, upgrading someone to an S or A rank support and then pairing them up gives absurd stat boosts and something crazy like 75% Defend/Dual Strike chance. I'm not even sure if True Hit is applied there, but regardless it's crazy good.
Fair enough I suppose, but I would argue that it is also common sense to save often in RPGs so that if you make a tactical error mid-fight or use all your items against an unbeatable foe, you have an easy restore point. Both break FE games in a comparable manner, I feel.
TheMightyBox
All We Have Are Raisins!
I'm probably alone in this, but I actually kinda prefer the new version.
Like, it makes Henry a less complex character, but a more interesting one. At least to me.
I dunno, I've just seen a lot more characters who kill lots of people and develop some kind of coping mechanism, whether it's isolation, compartmentalization, or full embracing of the slaughter, than I have characters that just
are like that.
Maybe it just makes him more mysterious to me, I don't know.
Same. The only time I ever had units that weren't paired with someone was when I needed to make a human wall and just didn't have the numbers to halve my force.
Other than that specific circumstance, the stat boost and defend/strike chances, plus more support convos as a result, pretty much meant that characters were three-legged racing towards the next opponent and basically able to slaughter them without taking substantial damage.
I didn't think the mechanic was ridiculously OP or anything, but I definitely think the game could've stood to have at least a couple enemies try it themselves.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Yeah, 100% agreed about the downgrade. As I said, it makes me feel a bit paranoid about what else was changed in the localization. I'm sure fans would have raised an uproar if it turned out some supports were massively changed, but it can't be underestimated how much a difference a few tweaks to lines can be here and there. Writing, game design, art in general, it all really comes down to the subtle things. A smarter line here and there that betrays a little depth could have gone a long way.
I really should just try and see if I can dig up an accurate translation sometime of the script. Not sure whether I'd be more disappointed with it being the same or if it was better.
Well, I might be biased by the fact that I had a hard time building my Pegasus Knights in both my 2 playthroughs of fe7 and 8. I think I only started working harder for them to be useful after the gba games.
Anyway though, you are right. Pairings advantages might be bigger then I thought (I tended to blame that stuff on the way I fucked over parts of the game with reclassing abuse), though overall I found the "human wall" strategy to be the most effective, since there tends to be a LOT of chokepoints in Awakening maps, many of which allow units to very efficiently position themselves adjacently to eachother and thus get the same support and dual strike bonuses while attacking as much or more. I also chose a pretty balanced team of ranged vs melee units that doesn't benefit as much from pairing (no dual strike).
Although, all that being said, balancing (especially around abilities and supports) seems more the issue and not the concept of pairing itself. The numbers are just off (reminds of a convo I had with Cynical a few weeks ago, talking about games with good ideas that worked/failed because of number/stat issues). It's to be expected when you introduce a new mechanic, as trial and error is a big part of game design. Hence again why FE:If is looking great, pairing are reclassing are cool ideas that could add a lot of fun new stuff and depth to the series, I can't wait to see this stuff refined further.
Yeah, but a good rpg works to balance this a bit. For example most of the better SMT and Final Fantasy games, where you either can't save in dungeons at all, or can only save at one specific safe zone in a dungeon.
Incidentally, this is one of the things that deeply saddened me in SMT IV. Mid dungeon saving basically turned the otherwise ultra tense and desicion heavy dungeon crawling into: take two steps > save > take two steps save > kill a monster > save > repeat.
Much like with Sacred Stones (which is worse about the grinding, that fucking Tower of Valne holy hell), I think the world map, or at least the way its executed, makes the game a little bit less perfect. But it's not quite as much of a deal breaker then mid mission saving since it still allows actual battles to be tense, and refraining from grinding feels more like a gamble then a self imposed challenge (maybe you'll beat the mission, save some time, and feel great. Maybe you'll die).
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FastLikeLightning
Home-Town Zero
That's perfectly valid, but I feel that the original version also makes him a bit more likable, where his strange cheeriness for death comes from being scarred instead of him just being nuts from the start.
FastLikeLightning
Home-Town Zero
My win strategy for the endgame missions was to pair up all my units, then send a couple of them to choke points (Usually Lon'Qu with Vaike on support, Morgan with Mirel (Mom) on support, and Kjelle with Sully support), then keep the rest back to deal with any stragglers and reinforcements while making a slow advance forward. This didn't get me through the entire game (Priam's recruitment chapter can go fuck itself), but it did make it through a large portion.
I agree. Pairing up is something that could be made a whole lot better, but I don't think it should be removed.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
That sounds a lot like my end-game for fe7. Oswald, Lucius, and Raven advancing that penultimate map on Dragon's Gate with the rest of the team staying behind them.
One thing that would definitely help would be if they made it a bit easier to build a more balanced/quantity focused army rather then a few powerhouses, which grinding technically does though not in an ideal way. Careful balancing is going to be key here.
I cannot express how hype I am for IF letting enemies pair/dual strike as well. Prepare your body.
North888
Yo thats sick!
Im sorry, but I don't like reclassing. I'm very much in the camp that I like to keep my characters as they are. It doesn't seem right to me to reclass them when they're designed and meant to fit a specific role. The thought of Nowie or Pan being anything by Manakete and Taguel wasn't a nice thought to me. Same goes for everyone else. I don't care if it allows you to get better coverage for their build, it just feels wrong to do it, at least to me. I'm very much in the linear progression of stats and skills I guess.
And honestly, not to bring back a dead argument, but you bring this up here that we should ignore the grinding we CAN do. Considering you had the exact oposite reaction to Radiant Dawn's battle save, which was just as, if not more optional. Of course that's designed to be harder and for you to take your time and save to make the right move, so no battle save makes it harder, but the point I'm making here is that if the game gives you, as one of its big mechanics, the ability to do something breaks the game without correctly telling or showing you the way to do it or limiting it so you can't break the game, then people are going to break said game. A "Well if you'd played it this way without using these things given to you" doesn't work here because they give grinding to you at NO PENALTY. So most people are going to grind, thinking its what they're supposed to do.
I feel they should keep pair ups, but maybe add negative bonuses. Like pairing with a heavy knight means you have to slow down so he can keep up, or possibly have some sorta system where pair up doesn't give massive stat bonuses. I personally hope they go back to old style of supports, so that means you gain points towards support just by being near enough to your support, and you still get stat bonuses. You gain fairly mediocre stat bonuses from other team members, but extra bonuses from the unit you're pair with...maybe...I dunno, I feel support was cool when you just had to be within a certain distance of each other to give bonuses and they weren't ridiculous like they get in Awakening. Tone down the bonuses and maybe add reasons not to abuse it aside from institutional reasons, and I'll probably think more highly of it.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
I partially agree but not entirely. I felt some of the reclass options felt weird, making knights into priests and other stuff like that. But otherwise I like it. FE has always been a more strict series compared to say, Final Fantasy Tactics or anything Nippon Icchi has ever made, and I feel the idea of being able to make very small changes along 2-3 paths like shifting to a similar class at the cost of some commitment, is a nice idea. Certainly not comparable to our average Final Fantasy Tactics or Nippon Icchi 1 billion jobs bullshit.
Naw, that's my point. Grinding is more optional. Main reason being it comes with a penalty (time). Avoiding grinding in some ways constitute a self imposed challenge, but it's one that's present in almost all rpg's and is pretty necessary to get any challenge out of any of them.
This is another reason why I kind of feel speed running (for most genres) is more intuitive then most self imposed challenges. It's playing the game better rather then differently, and players are tangibly rewarded with faster clear times and more impressive victories. I have some turn offs about speedrunning though but that's another convo.
And not telegraphing that grinding was supposed to be a crutch was a mistake, yes. If I had my way, maps as a whole would be out the window or at least implemented in a way so that grinding was completely limited.
I think the main part that gives people the wrong idea about it is that chapter where the kid magician joins your team (forget his name). Pretty bullshit trying to rescue him there without a huge stat boost. Most people will just go full ham at that point and stick to that playstyle for the rest of the game.
These self imposed challenge arguments are somewhat subjective. Is playing on hard a self imposed challenge when you could just pick easy? Bleh. Grinding is more of a self imposed challenge then a hard mode but definitely less of a self imposed challenge then something that's ridiculously good and right there the whole time with no time investment or risk needed (saving). Both Sacred Stones and Awakening are flawed in this department imo but far less so then Dawn.
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North888
Yo thats sick!
Ricken?
The moment I had to start grinding was the docks with Cherche >_>
Now, I'm not everyone, but faster clear times aren't always a great reward, at least to me. Yeah, there's an adrenaline rush and a great feeling when you do clear things quickly, but I feel that if strategy games have a speed run element to them, it gets repetitive or inconsequential. I prefer my SRPGs to slow it down and maybe not meander, but definitely not speed through everything, takes the fun out of the fight. Then again, I'm not a fan of speed runs, but I see the challenge in it.
The moment I had to start grinding was the docks with Cherche >_>
Now, I'm not everyone, but faster clear times aren't always a great reward, at least to me. Yeah, there's an adrenaline rush and a great feeling when you do clear things quickly, but I feel that if strategy games have a speed run element to them, it gets repetitive or inconsequential. I prefer my SRPGs to slow it down and maybe not meander, but definitely not speed through everything, takes the fun out of the fight. Then again, I'm not a fan of speed runs, but I see the challenge in it.
BeatNinja
*Sneezes*
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Have you ever speedrun any game, let alone an srpg? :3
I agree, but speed running is just an analogy, not something I'm actually suggesting doing for Awakening or any other rpg/srpg. Point is, if I could have used skill to get through the sunken dungeon in Final Fantasy III instead of grinding for literally TWO FUCKING AFTERNOONS, you can bet I would have. You don't need to speedrun to see the fun in not having to wait several hours before you can fight something.
You spend time to make the game easier, it's a reasonable if not ideal transaction based on your preferences.
I too also dislike speedruns on several levels though (often riddled with pacing and balance issues due to their nature of abusing things that often weren't intended). Playing shmups or platinum games titles for 1cc and score are much better experiences IMO.
"Self Insert" should totally become the canon replacement for "Avatar" or "My Unit".
BeatNinja
*Sneezes*
Unless you're like me and you find grinding oddly relaxing. Crack open a brewski, kick on your podcast of choice, and grind away. Then again, my friend recently made a fair comparison of grinding to homework, which is very accurate. But hey.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
I agree it's a lot more fun in FE, in the few games that allow it. Mostly because it allows you some illusion of one day being able to use all those under-leveled characters you left behind in the dust :(
The grinding in Final Fantasy 1-3 traumatized me though. Never again.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Tis true. Series didn't start to get good till FF4 introduce the Active Time Battle system imo.
I imagine the job system could alleviate a lot of stress with 3. I might just suck too hard at rpg stats to pull it off though. I think You'd need a ton of planning and foreknowledge regardless though.
I imagine the job system could alleviate a lot of stress with 3. I might just suck too hard at rpg stats to pull it off though. I think You'd need a ton of planning and foreknowledge regardless though.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Mostly skipped ahead to the battle analysis, just to see if he noticed anything I missed.
I said it before and I'll say it again: No grid based movement = no fucks given. Gonna wait till that's officially confirmed or not to see if I'll get my hopes up.
I said it before and I'll say it again: No grid based movement = no fucks given. Gonna wait till that's officially confirmed or not to see if I'll get my hopes up.
Aren't a lot of speedruns just Banking on RNGesus instead of breaking him?
Meow-Professor
Getting back into the swing of things
I leave the thread for a night, and there's already a ton of replies, my goodness.
One of you mentioned if there was a special edition of the physical copy including the DLC to make a choice; yes, they have announced one.
It's 77$ dollars when translated from yen and includes an artbook, a starter deck of the Fire Emblem TCG (yes sadly they made that) and the special edition version of the game, allowing you to pick which side you want to be on.
Also, speaking of SMT x FE, is it just me, but where you widely disappointed by the trailer? The redesigns for the FE characters were horrible, and so far it looks like a SMT game with some FE stuff sprinkled in.
I have a feeling that this game really won't be that good. But hey, I'm almost always completely wrong!
My main hope for If is that the manga writer will make fantastic story, and that the dialogue will be improved considering I had problems with them in Awakening. I'm hoping they keep the supports just because, if improved on, they can really make game, and the characters, much better.
As aforementioned, though, I think some changes will need to be made to the pairing up system to avoid how overpowered (not sure if that's the right word) paired units were in Awakening.
They weren't really stronger than everything else, but pairing units up kind of became the only option.
I don't think the pairing up system should be removed, but I definitely think the buffs it gives should be reduced greatly.
One of you mentioned if there was a special edition of the physical copy including the DLC to make a choice; yes, they have announced one.
It's 77$ dollars when translated from yen and includes an artbook, a starter deck of the Fire Emblem TCG (yes sadly they made that) and the special edition version of the game, allowing you to pick which side you want to be on.
Also, speaking of SMT x FE, is it just me, but where you widely disappointed by the trailer? The redesigns for the FE characters were horrible, and so far it looks like a SMT game with some FE stuff sprinkled in.
I have a feeling that this game really won't be that good. But hey, I'm almost always completely wrong!
My main hope for If is that the manga writer will make fantastic story, and that the dialogue will be improved considering I had problems with them in Awakening. I'm hoping they keep the supports just because, if improved on, they can really make game, and the characters, much better.
As aforementioned, though, I think some changes will need to be made to the pairing up system to avoid how overpowered (not sure if that's the right word) paired units were in Awakening.
They weren't really stronger than everything else, but pairing units up kind of became the only option.
I don't think the pairing up system should be removed, but I definitely think the buffs it gives should be reduced greatly.
Nap1400
must get good
Random Number Generators aren't actually completely random: if you know how the numbers are generated and keep track of your inputs you can bypass that factor completely.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
It depends on the game and how rng is particularly handled in the engine. Sometimes rng is based on factors that are easy to manipulate, sometimes its based on things that make it basically impossible for a human (non TAS).
Supports have been in the series since before 7 was localized. They ain't going anywhere.
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Meow-Professor
Getting back into the swing of things
I should've elaborated on my point here. I don't see a reason why they would be removed, but I've seen people saying "oh they don't add anything to the game and should be removed so they can focus on gameplay" when it came to Awakening. It's coming from the 1% of the mainstream audience who aren't aware that mechanic has been in for quite while and like to nitpick. It's petty but I just wanted to clarify that there aren't downsides to the supports and they should really be focused on and improved.
Even then, I've seemed to have the pleasure of only having experiences with the worst and most poisonous of the fanbase so this is probably just a one-of-a-kind experience for me.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Yeah. I suggest staying off 4chan :)
Meow-Professor
Getting back into the swing of things
Haha... Ha...Ha... (cries)
Meow-Professor
Getting back into the swing of things
I've never been on the Serene Forums but 4Chan and also Reddit are absolute cancer when it comes to FE. It put me off the series for a little while, for god's sake.
But it's like an abusive relationship; I love forum websites. They ruin things for me, but I can't help but come back.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
There you go.
North888
Yo thats sick!
I love FE. I mean, yeah, my opinions are a bit...negative when it comes to quite a few things, but yeah, supports are a great mechanic. Not only do they drive character building, but they're also good fun. If Awakening had toned down the amount of comedic supports, or used 1-2 comedic strings to transition into a serious or actually heartfelt moment, I wouldn't have any issue with them. I get the feeling supports are going to be more serious again given the topic at hand, ESPECIALLY for those of you going Nohr, given the MC hasn't seen his birth family his whole life and has to get to know them from the ground up.
Meow-Professor
Getting back into the swing of things
It's the other way around, apparently, Hoshido is where you were born, and Nohr where you were raised. That's another reason I'm picking Hoshido; the dynamic between MC and the family MC has never met in the support conversations would really shine if they did it correctly.
Also, I'm not sure how true this is, but I'm seeing word of a third DLC path that leaves you neutral. If this is the case, that would be really interesting.
For those of you who are wary about it being true: A third DLC path has been confirmed. Another website I read stated that it would include the "neutral" path, and that the digital version of the game wouldn't include it.
So there's a bit more to the Special Edition; the SE will include the choice DLC and the neutral path DLC. That's good, because since the TCG won't be released in America, if I'm correct, we'll have more than just the digital version with an artbook.
Everything will have a 2016 US/EU release.
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Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
Since you brought up Awakening again, I also wanted to mention in the previous convo that playing it again, the map design is quite good.
I know you criticized it a few pages back for being "too small" and/or "being the same thing over and over", "shallow", etc. and both complaints seem pretty false with more time spent on it.
I actually went and compared a ton of grid mapped image files for the gba fe trio to the maps in Awakening, and they're roughly the same size overall.
As for variety, I think the game is actually surprisingly strong in terms of strategic variety, even from the early game. Compare the last three missions of the first arc:
Emmeryon: Race to Libra, at the bottom west corner of the map, let just a few enemies through to recruit Tharja, then block off the twin choke points before the full force of the enemy army arrives.
Renewal: Pretty big, and close to a "standard" map in that you can take several paths. 3 units blocking off the "trenches" or fighting in the open to get surrounds and use the forts are both valid. First option allows Pegasus Knights to get on top of the enemy from the hills.
Gangrel: Huge wide open map that will kill your face if you try to walk straight through it like the last one. Instead, get all your units holed up in the island on the north west corner of the map, with your strongest units blocking off the two (or was it three? can't remember) bridges and regularly swapping places when they run low on health. There's so many guys though, you sometimes have to take a risk and send some units outside the island to pick off enemies before they can attack. After all that's done, Gangrel and his team give a nasty surprise by beginning to move when you're almost in range, instead of letting you trick them into being picked off one by one like most previous bosses.
Renewal: Pretty big, and close to a "standard" map in that you can take several paths. 3 units blocking off the "trenches" or fighting in the open to get surrounds and use the forts are both valid. First option allows Pegasus Knights to get on top of the enemy from the hills.
Gangrel: Huge wide open map that will kill your face if you try to walk straight through it like the last one. Instead, get all your units holed up in the island on the north west corner of the map, with your strongest units blocking off the two (or was it three? can't remember) bridges and regularly swapping places when they run low on health. There's so many guys though, you sometimes have to take a risk and send some units outside the island to pick off enemies before they can attack. After all that's done, Gangrel and his team give a nasty surprise by beginning to move when you're almost in range, instead of letting you trick them into being picked off one by one like most previous bosses.
Overall I think it's as satisfying and fun a strategy game as the others. Some balance issues that hurt the game long term (although admittedly, for the FE franchise endgame's have generally been the most questionable part of the series due to the "super units" you usually have built by then) all the new mechanics added, but that's what happens when you add new mechanics. Got keep refining over time.
Yeah, I mentioned this a page or two back. It's hilarious how this game is more SMT then the actual FE X SMT.
Still not sure where I'm leaning on Hoshido vs Nohr. On one hand, Nohr already seems to have better gameplay (fuck you, overworlds), and I could see it having a nice mix of dark/light in the story since on one hand you'd be on the "bad guy" side, but you'd be trying to convince your family to support you in a revolution of the country. So it could end up being simultaneously darker and more idealistic then Hoshido, which would be cool.
On the other hand, Hoshido could be pretty dramatic too, since you'd be fighting your family, and your "real" family being more distant due to not having been raised there and having no preexisting relationship.
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North888
Yo thats sick!
I get that what I said was pretty shallow. I feel that the stages could have been larger at points, instead most of them seem to feature the sae size maps. Many also have similar amounts of enemies after a certain point, so it starts to feel repetitive. Its why I like alternate victory conditions and some other gimmicks, cause they spice things up, prevent it from feeling stale to anyone. I tend to employ similar strategies, so such changes really help break things up for me, honestly.
Squire Grooktook
The wind blew all day long
I'm not sure I'm feeling the "too many similar enemies", even my op Generals have gotten one shotted by a magic user riding in in a wave full of archers and axe fighters.
As for alternate victory conditions, the only one I legitimately mourne is defense (and imo those have always been pretty underused, usually like 3-5 missions out of each game entirely). Capture vs Route is pretty much the same thing, so I barely noticed Capture was gone.
Only game I (very vaguely, it's been a while) seem to recall had generally larger maps overall was Sacred Stones.
By the way, what's everyone think of that game?
I seem to recall a lot of people hate the Lords. Personally I like Erika, but Ephraim is kind of dull and never really shows any emotion (plus Lyon becomes "unintentionally unsympathetic" on his route). As for the main plot, even though preventing a "demon king" from being unsealed is cliche even by this series standards, I do feel like it has a nice sense of impending doom/dread with the zombie apocalypse slowly engulfing the continent.
Gameplay wise it suffers from an overworld, but otherwise I seem to recall liking the maps and battles themselves. Tower of Valni is the worst grinding excuse ever, though I admit I do find the idea of trying to delve deeper and deeper into it to be cool.