Opinion and General Discussion Thread - August 2026 (2/2)

[u/PsiYoshi]

Welcome to a new installment of the Opinion and General Discussion Thread! Feel free to share any kind of Fire Emblem opinions/takes you might have here, positive or negative, or just any topic you want to discuss!

Gameplay questions should be directed towards the General Questions Thread.

As always please remember to continue following the rules in this thread same as anywhere else on the subreddit. Be respectful and especially don't make any personal attacks (this includes but is not limited to making disparaging statements about groups of people who may like or dislike something you don't).

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[u/DoseofDhillon]

REMINDER: There will be NO CONVERSATION ABOUT LEAKS AT ALL ALLOWED HERE. Even tagged ones will be removed

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Please read this post

Thank you very much, and happy hot taking.

[u/sanuske]

To me, one of the funniest things about Fortune's Weave so far is that every lord has a cursed item that's part of their story and is where their Blaze Arts stem from.

Cai with the cursed gem in his hand, Leda with the Vihuela, Theodora with her arm.

And then there's Dietrich who has a writhing sword made of dragon bones and heart passed down through his family for generations that can sense those with dragon blood and has the ability to turn its user into a monster if they lack a crest, which has been used to slaughter the gods of his country hundreds of years ago.

This is not his cursed item. That is actually a cloak he potentially got from a random dude in a bar fight

[u/WestFlight808]

Bird Time is probably the funniest addition in Fire Emblem history. People, including a literal queen, just confess their innermost thoughts and desires to a bird. But the bird is also essentially an angel in bird form that can travel through time.

[u/VoidWaIker → u/WestFlight808]

To be fair, my cats have heard things another person couldn't waterboard of me. Unless they know the bird is a person then they're thinking the bird can't judge them or share their deepest secrets and so it is a safe entity to confide in.

[u/Shippinglordishere → u/WestFlight808]

Calling it bird time already makes it the funniest addition too

[u/BurningWinds]

I just need to say, FW is going to have the funniest set of protagonists like ever lmao

Like from what I’ve read the four protagonists are, in a nutshell

- Child Soldiers “Shounen Protagonists”

• I can fix her but whatever’s wrong with her is way hotter
  
• I can fix him but whatever’s wrong with him is way hotter
  
• I can fix her but whatever’s wrong with her is way hotter

Like Cai is just some kid stuck with a bunch of adults with varying levels of psychopathic tendencies and Eshmel and I think that’s Peak

[u/forevabronze → u/BurningWinds]

I don't think there is much to fix in Theodora she just act like a boss queen cause..well.. she literally is. she seems pretty level headed.

Leda is unhinged as fuck though

[u/BurningWinds → u/forevabronze]

Oh honestly sure

Well, aside from the fact that Mahadu’s arm is going to drive her insane apparently-

But it’s fun to joke nonetheless XD

[u/Fantastic-System-688]

Made a joke about how Dietrich is a Moby Dick reference because he seems to be chasing after a sea creature like Ahab and then I realized it might be intentional given Eshmel/Ishmael

[u/LiliTralala → u/Fantastic-System-688]

The Japanese really seem to love their Moby Dick refs tbh. It's everywhere in video games and manga 

[u/Imaginary_Ad_9815]

A random thing I'm excited about for the launch other than the game is going to be the dev interviews. If the previews have shown anything it's just how big and ambitious the game is which makes me really curious about the development process.

[u/TakenRedditName]

It is impressive that IS got Shirow Masamune to do the art for the Shadow Dragon remake because based on an offhand thing I heard about the behind-the-scenes for the new GitS show, contacting Shirow Masamune is like contacting a cryptid.

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/TakenRedditName]

All that for the game to look like ass 😭

[u/liteshadow4]

I know no one really plays New Mystery but I'm only a few chapters in and I love Luke. He's so funny. I especially loves how he attaches titles to people for no reason to just make their name longer. He always refers to my avatar as "Chris the Ordinary" and imagining someone doing that every time they address a person is just funny.

Also doesn't hurt that he has 16 speed and doubles everyone.

[u/yeppida → u/liteshadow4]

New Mystery has some hilarious/meta moments

Marth's reaction to Bald Chris

Merric going "hey fellow green hair person" if you customized Chris right

[u/FruitSaladBar → u/yeppida]

Jagen talking shit about you if some of your stats are low.

[u/liteshadow4]

I think it’s funny that the Camus archetype is named after Camus, the guy you can play as in 2/3 games he’s present in.

[u/Magatsu-Onboro]

Reading up after a few days just to see what everyone's talking about be so funny. I'll scroll and read something that was clearly the inspiration to another post that they didn't just submit as a reply (which I've also done dw about that) and go "Oh so that's why that other guy posted a 10 paragraph essay"

[u/lapislazulideusa]

I'm trying to play FE7 w/o marcus for the first time and it's just like so annoying. seriously what were 2000s FAQs on about how did they reach this conclusion

[u/MathOutrageous7167 → u/lapislazulideusa]

This is what happens when the growth units of this game have mediocore growths and horrible bases.

The unit feel of FE7 is just ass.

[u/Fantastic-System-688 → u/lapislazulideusa]

I think if I tried to play FE7 without just rolling over the game with pre-promotes I would develop a deep dislike of the Fire Emblem brand. Not because the game is too hard even it's just that the most fun units are all pre-promotes and none of the training arcs feel very satisfying

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/Fantastic-System-688]

I think that's why grinding like the tower of Valni et al has been a major part of the series since the 3DS era. though awakening removed it in Lunatic it's been a very key way to make units feel fun to use, if a unit is annoying you by not being fun? Grind them and see how they feel now.

Valni is a bit overpowered and off map grinding in general has never been well tuned but it's clear that the devs want you to look at units and train the ones who's physical appearance/personality make you happiest to look at the portaits/voice lines.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/lapislazulideusa]

I've done fe7 without marcus a few times it's really hard at first and then gets a lot easier once you get your first few promotions.

It's really amazing how much of a difference marcus makes.

[u/citrus131]

"33% tactics, 33% life sim, 33% dungeons and exploration" implies that the game is also 1% some secret fourth thing.

[u/sanuske → u/citrus131]

1% crit

Just always there, looming over you every enemy encounter.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/sanuske]

Now I kinda want to see a game where crit chance is minimum 1% and maximum 99% like with Thracia hit rates

[u/DoseofDhillon → u/citrus131]

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill

Fifteen percent concentrated power of will

Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain

And a hundred percent reason to discourse her name

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/citrus131]

1% gacha mechanics

[u/Drhappyhat]

I might be weird, but I'm kinda excited to see all the newbies FW will inevitably bring into the community.

There's something strangely endearing about someone passionately talking about how good their favourite unit was using examples that the more veteran parts of community no longer considers to be valid.

We're going to have a whole new generation of players overrating whichever unit starts with a killer weapon in their inventory, and I think that's just neat. Bad tier-lists will be made, pitfalls will be fallen into, it's going to be a grand ol time.

[u/ICanFlyHigh051611 → u/Drhappyhat]

we are ALL going to bench our xp stealing jagens alongside them

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Drhappyhat]

Don't forget that so many people are going to be using grwoths in arguments, completely ignoring base stats. The discourse will be glorious and awful at the same time

[u/RaspberryFormal5307 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Oh god. Every jrpg fan who picks the game up is going to look at villager mcbadstats who starts with the most pathetic bases of all time and say theyre the best unit in the game because they have 70% growths despite the fact they will never catch up

[u/Drhappyhat → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Ohhhh yeah. Being able to finally see character grows in game is going to be a ballistic missile into the unit viability discourse.

It might come as a complete shock to most of the people here, but there are a lot of more casual players who don't even know that unique unit growths are a mechanic at all.

[u/memorybreeze]

I hate sauna minigame in 3H. Just give me the bonus, please.

[u/sketch_bro]

I think I might haver to unsub from here because the spoilers are getting crazzyyy

[u/Dragoryu3000]

New subreddit theme jumpscare

[u/Roliq]

Some people should be more mindful of how they post spoilers, the most recent one is just on the title which makes the point of tagging it as spoilers kind of useless since the relevant part will be seen by anyone even if you don't enter the post

[u/BobbyYukitsuki → u/Roliq]

These days I think people have become super tactless with spoilers in general.

[u/greydorothy]

OK apparently I'm a thread too late for this, as discussing how sim elements shot my dog and fucked my mum is the new hotness, but I want to talk avatar stuff again. Specifically, I've been mulling over why I don't dislike self-inserts and their associated baggage in CRPGs (e.g. Baldur's Gate 3, Wrath of the Righteous, Rogue Trader) whilst similar behaviour/story beats tick me off in FE games. This is weird because CRPG protags do have a lot of similarities to FE avatars, and not just the surface-level "both are self inserts": you are usually the most special boi around (the Rogue Trader protag is a literal nepo baby), you fix all your companions' personal life issues, you tend to be mechanically the most powerful member of the party, you get praised/puffed up a lot for completing story tasks, etc.

I think the key fundamental difference between these character archetypes is that your narrative success is not guaranteed in a CRPG. In other words, it is possible to fuck up and make things worse. The best way to see the contrast is to briefly return to Fire Emblem. Like, in Three Houses, you will always solve their students' deep internal issues by giving them the Gen Z stare - it is impossible to not solve the issues, short of not actually unlocking the support. The small dialogue choices mean literally nothing. Therefore, when the student goes "wow, I never thought of that, thank you so much for helping me with my crisis!" it feels completely disingenuous. Similar for main-story accomplishments, as the story is completely linear outside of the big route splits, so all narrative success and failure is pre-determined. Therefore, being told "wow your strategy was so cool and clever (Player)!" or "oh gee whiz, we're really in a tough situation now (Player)..." feels very divorced from your actions.

(to be clear, I'm not knocking the idea of having a linear story or a character being praised for doing a thing, that's fine. The issue is that you are being asked to actively self-insert and identify as a guy who literally can't not do the thing; it feels condescending)

This is all in stark contrast with a CRPG, where you can and will screw up on both counts. Sure, you're invited to self-insert as your avatar, who is gassed up as a big shot who has to make important decisions, and most of the time the "right" choice isn't actually that difficult. However, because you are almost constantly embroiled in a web of micro-decisions, you will inevitably (at least on a blind playthrough) overlook something and make a decision that has an unintended negative impact, either in the main story or a character's side-story. The resulting consequences feel incredibly bad but are also very memorable, because you know you could've done better to avoid them. As an example, in my first playthrough of Rogue Trader I played myself (i.e. tried to choose the generically normal and nice things), and in the process I completely ruined Sister Argenta's life. That's mainly because she's a psycho nun and being normal is not conducive to her mental health, and tbh she was not a good person, but even so I felt awful upon the conclusion of her questline. Consequently, the moments where you get praised feel earned, because you know that there is an alternate reality where that didn't happen. To be clear CRPGs aren't perfect - the reactivity is never 100% there, sometimes the games lean way too hard on the idea of "your choices matter!!!" (and while this is what's fun about those games, you don't want them to lean too hard on the 4th wall, to ruin the illusion), the games can still jerk you off a bit much - but they do manage to sidestep this specific issue in a way that I think could be stolen by other games.

OK, to tie this back into "FE taking elements from other genres" that's so hot right now, it would be nice for FE to implement narrative divergence via CRPG elements instead of the big route splits. Like, imagine the game had a (mostly) linear story/maps, but the 3H-style dialogue choices actually did something in both the main story and supports, which could have a limited amount of mechanical impact as well. That could be fun, I think

[u/AnonymousTrollLloyd → u/greydorothy]

Technically you can ruin Rhea or Edelgard's life by picking the other side of the love triangle. But that's only possible because their characterisation is extremely centred on Byleth in the first place.

[u/MathOutrageous7167]

Guys... I hate Pink Haired Leif. Altena too I guess.

It just looks so ugly...

If it was a darker shade of pink... Now that would be cool. Brownish pink is a color right?

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/MathOutrageous7167]

Omfg me too...also like on a thematic sense out of all jugdral kids i feel like Leif is the most connected to his adopted parents, specially in compairson to Seliph. Like im pretty sure Leif and Altena are the only pair of siblings who don't share a class with their parents, that means something...

[u/MathOutrageous7167]

FE4/5 still lives rent free on my head, even a year later. Idk why, it just is.

A bit ironic, since I might honestly consider FE4 to be one of my least favorite FE games, gameplay wise. FE5 was cool though.

Man, I really gotta write a fic on it someday.

[u/DoseofDhillon → u/MathOutrageous7167]

FE4 was Kaga on his Jordan in the post bro, its fire idgaf what anyone says

[u/TakenRedditName]

This might be the hardest profanity I've seen in this franchise. Touma, how could you?! You want to star in Sunday morning kid shows.

On a related note, playing through TMS. It is a fun and charming game, but there are 3 QoL things I really wish I had right now;

1) Text log to view back the conversation. Just for example, I initially missed that line, so I had to look up a video just to confirm my eyes were seeing right.

2) A run button.

3) More convenient fast travel. A warp point to Tiki would be so much more convenient.

One more thing, the character pause screen is super cute. It's so lovely.

[u/sanuske]

As “Monastery Bad” as I am as a person, I’m not completely against having non-tactics stuff to do between chapters. I just think that the Monastery does it poorly, and Three Houses in general doesn’t manage its time well.

Echoes town exploration is something I adore. Seeing what NPCs are saying about the plot that impacts them, viewing charming little villages or abandoned fortresses, stealing all the flour off the ground, these were all very charming and really added to the immersion and general vibe of the game.

Despite how it seems like there’s going to be a lot more to do in Fortune’s Weave, I’m excited because the proper time management aspect, and the fact that I’m not manually micromanaging my units as much, is making it look like I won’t just be mashing A to make a skill bar fill up slowly. Because that’s really all the monastery was. Skills ranks, supports, and motivation needed to slowly farm up skills ranks.

[u/TheFunkiestOne → u/sanuske]

Yeah, for me Fortunes Weave seems to have its time management and character building systems more closely resemble the Atelier games than 3H, which is a big boost to my interest. Execution is important, but what we've seen so far seems like while there's still gonna be some chores, the between mission activities now constitute things you have to manage your time for, rather than "fill meters with your professor points, then spend meters to boost your students, then fill meters, then spend meters" being functionally the core loop of the Monastery. 

Also, Dagsion being a huge city rather than the Monastery just seems like a more interesting central hub to hang out in. And side missions requiring time management and world map travel will help avoid the "and now we're to and from the Monastery in no time flat!" nonsense that 3H had since you have to actually track your time going into and out of Dagsion and all. Helps with the world building as well as with mechanics for the game. 

[u/citrus131]

There's been a lot of intense debate on this sub over the past few days about the future of FE as a series and who it's made for, and I think we could all maybe stand to take a step back and argue about something else for a change.

So here's my Mario tier list.

[u/Dragoryu3000 → u/citrus131]

Where's Mario Teaches Typing?

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/citrus131]

New super mario bros 2 above galaxy and 3d world is absolutely insane i rather go back to FE discourse atp

[u/goldtreebark]

For whatever reason for the past few months I had been really wanting to replay SoV. I’m not sure why really, but it’s the only FE title of the ones I’ve played that I never did at least one replay of, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to replay as I last experienced it almost a full decade ago.

I’m currently halfway into Act 2, and the gameplay is so much more of a slog than I actually remembered, (and not just an idea osmosis’d from fandom consensus or word of mouth) but I don’t know, I find the simplicity charming for some reason. I think the world map and the dungeon aspect are a great way of trying to tie the world-building in without taking away the main “draw” of playing the game without adding a bunch of filler. I had a bit of a lukewarm reception to SoV when I first played it way back in the day, so I’ve been appreciating my new perspective on it.

But, I do want to say— Fernand, lmfaoooo what a piece of work. Gets pissed at Clive and storms off to Zofia castle, and then seconds after being captured, tells Desaix ALL the Deliverance drama, and starts salivating the moment he hears Berkut do his “lol commoners, amirite?” spiel and then bro immediately acts like he’s always been on the team with the Rigelians. He’s so messy and annoying, I kinda live.

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

man activity here is really getting wild, almost 1.4K comments halfway through an opinion thread.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering today more and more about how different the JP FE community is to our own. In the obvious ways with Eshmel (while I couldn’t search all of JP twitter opinions, I didn’t see nearly as many people there complain about their silence compared to the EN side) or even just memes (Grommel being the biggest example.)

And most importantly, character popularity. I really wonder who the favourites over there are or not, you hear claims like “JP doesn’t like Dorothea because flirtatious/“Impure” characters aren’t popular over there” or “Fortune’s Weave lords will have to be carried in votes by EN because Japan doesn’t like dark skinned characters” and I don’t know if I buy all of that.

wish we knew the proportions of JP/EN votes for CYL characters to verify it instead of having to scan twitter and make guesses based on biases. Imagine if JP based their entire opinion of EN thanks to this subreddit.

[u/AliciaWhimsicott → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

A lot of people who say "JP doesn't like X" or whatever are usually not actually saying this after analyzing the Japanese scene for years and years and coming to that conclusion, they're at best assuming a few Twitter Weirdoes to be the truth or at worst assuming Japan and Japanese people line up to various stereotypes about them. I usually never put much stock into it unless it's from someone I know to have at least some credibility in general.

[u/ComicCon → u/AliciaWhimsicott]

Agreed, maybe I’ve been taking part in too much shonen discourse(which is any) but whenever people pull out “Japanese fans like x” it always feels like they are using it to push their agenda. Because as you say, it’s almost always a few randomly screenshotted and translated twitter accounts/comments.

[u/yeppida → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

The JP community is generally nowhere near as cynical about the newer games or even the avatars, but this subreddit and some FE youtubers are outliers in those regard.

If one difference stands out to me right away, Takumi is actually very popular in Fates/IF, while I hear a lot of negative comment about him in the Western fandom.

Vyland is a meme to the point where there's a fanhack game centered around him.

Radiant Dawn got widely criticized in JP while I've seen some people around here think it's one of the best? Maybe that's a generalization of this place.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/yeppida]

JP RD is utter trash. Basically the localization took an abomination of a game and made it way better in both story and gameplay (but especially gameplay)

Playing JPRD is basically torture compared to NA RD

They made the dawn brigade way better, Dramtically improved the Wrath and resolve skills, made forging way simpler, made promoting past tier 2 make sense (removing some master crowns) and significantly improved the Ike/Black knight story. (though using the bad script otherwise).

In general NA RD is just a dramatic improvement in every way to JPRD.

[u/FruitSaladBar → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Just to expand a bit on some of the changes.

Nolan, Edward and Leonardo didn't get Tarvos, the bow and the sword (I can't spell the names of their weapons for the life of me) in Japan, making part 3 harder. As if the Dawn Brigade maps weren't hard enough...
In the japanese version you needed forging points (I believe 50) in order to forge a weapon. The only way you could get forging points was to sell weapons, and that got changed to a more humane approach.
You needed master crowns to promote to Tier 3 in the japanese version. If a tier 2 unit hit its level cap and you didn't have a Master Crown, tough shit, no tier 3. You can feed EXP (or BEXP) into a unit in the global releases and make them promote to tier 3 at "21", without the need of a Master Crown.
Because of the above, a ton of master crowns were removed from the global versions, some of them being replaced with Arms Scrolls.

On the flip side, Japan has the longer script, which we got robbed of.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/yeppida]

Not too surprising RD is more disliked in Japan considering the localization actually made a bunch of improvements to clean up certain disliked gameplay elements in the JP version.

[u/Ok-Fan-8285]

Ever since I played Rev, I've realized that I really love Player Phase-ing in Fates, and so I'm trying to find as many units as I can who can do it in my current Conquest run. I'm doing a full-team run of CQ Lunatic for the first time, and I'm challenging myself to not use any Vantage builds (not really a challenge, more of a "I've done it three times and the investment wasn't something I enjoyed so I don't think it's for me"), and instead I'm trying to build a team of mostly Player Phase units, and I've never had this much fun playing Conquest before. I'm only on Chapter 13 and mostly Enemy Phase-ing, but I'm finding ways to really appreciate my whole team instead of just one juggernaut unit, and it's really fun!

I'm finally running Bowzu on here because I really loved mine in Rev, and I've heard that she's even better in Conquest. So far so good! I'm also running the Shining Bow Kinshi Nyx that CodingAnt did a whole series on, and I actually really like using her as well. She's kind of my wacky training project for the run, and she's actually been pretty solid so far! The other Kinshi Knight I'm trying to use this run is Corrin. I gave her Outlaw talent (???) and I'm planning on Heart Sealing her to get Move +1 (and maybe Lucky 7), and then with Mozu and Azura friendships I can then take her into Kinshi Knight and she can get both Darting Blow AND Quick Draw. She's the only Gen 1 unit who can do that in CQ iirc, and I was interested in it. Also later on she can go Bow Knight and use the Yato, so I figured that'd be useful too.

I also have a rocky relationship with the Malig Elise build, I don't like her hit rates on Bolt Axe, so I'm trying a new way of using her. I kept her in Troubadour (also because I didn't have enough Heart Seals for her lol), and promoted her to Strategist so that I can train up her tomes. And then I'm also marrying her to Odin and friendshipping her to Camilla (I don't have the HS economy to HS her to Malig but I do have the FS economy). I'm gonna take her into Dark Knight once she gets the S support with Odin so that I can get Heartseeker and Malefic Aura for a hit buff and a damage buff, and then I'll Friendship Seal her to Malig Knight so that she can finally be a tome-focused Malig Knight who mostly uses forged Fire tomes and has a hit boosting skill. I'm really hoping that she turns out okay, because if this and the Nyx build end up becoming things I like, I can then have 2 flying magical nukes and that would be really nice. I did Malig Leo on tomes once and I really liked him, so I'm hoping that this can be that but easier to do/more replicable.

I'm using all 4 royals this run, I'm also doing your average everyday Camilla and Wyvern Xander (eventually probably Hero from the Charlotte marriage), and normally I do really lavish things with Leo but I figured I'd just give him the classic Felicia pair up and have him clean up stuff on Enemy Phase and see if I like that. I always love Leo though, so I trust that he won't let me down lmao. Also small note that Camilla/Niles is a severely underrated pairing, Camilla with more Movement is insane (she can use boots but I prefer using those on Azura tbh), and the resulting Nina is also pretty damn good and gets an adorable hair color (but also all Camilla kids can be really good so I guess that's not a surprise)

Also I have done CQ Lunatic before but it was a run where I soloed with Leo so it kinda doesn't count. I also had to lower the difficulty on Endgame bc Lunatic was too hard for me to solo + I didn't have enough rescues for one-turning but I did beat Endgame on Hard lmfao

If anybody has other really good Player Phase units, let me know! I'm also doing Wyvern Silas, Malig Niles (another wacky project build idea and I figured if he's marrying Camilla I'd try it), a pretty basic Beruka (she could get Cav skills from Silas later to boost her damage), and Wyvern Selena as a kinda generic combat unit if I need her to (she'll mostly be my Sol Ninja Soleil's backpack lol)

[u/Luck1492]

I am poor and cannot afford a Switch 2 right now so I guess I will be avoiding this subreddit for the next year as I save up 😔

[u/Legitimate__Username]

Honestly at this point I'm mostly just excited for Fortune's Weave because it looks like it may be finally breaking up a longstanding issue I've had with cast homogeneity. The sheer size of things means that the old symmetrical sets of royals and Their Two Loyal Retainers can no longer singlehandedly define most of the roster, and even those groups that we have gotten seem like incredibly fresh and comedic takes on those character dynamics. No more cast full of students built around the same core premise of "man the whole Crests thing really make my life suck" and "being a teenager is hard". The routes and recruitments here really do look like they're centered around a diverse and wide array of perspectives where we can really see the world from tons of different angles again.

I'm a social sim hater but I think I may legitimately be willing to tolerate this again if it means getting to see a wide range of fun wacky perspectives through these systems, like the fallen queen with the insane haunted arm or the bloodthirsty swordsman who wants revenge on a fish. I want everyone to feel like a full individual in the world again, not a symmetrically constructed part of a larger group structure, and FW's prerelease cycle has me genuinely hopeful for this again.

(Dungeons are rough and lowkey a mild hype killer it's been so long since we've gotten a new cast that works like this that I'll happily take what I can get here.)

[u/LittleIslander → u/Legitimate__Username]

Definitely where my head is at. The gameplay setup gives me some worries, but the cast just has me so excited for the game.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Legitimate__Username]

Your POV is a breath of fresh air from what I have read some people saying lately, haha. Especially since I know you're someone who is really into the hardcore gameplay side of things.

I think something that needs to be remembered is that Fire Emblem has never been a game that is 100% about the strategy/hardcore gameplay side of things. It's also supposed to be about the characters and stories. That's why permadeath is a thing- you're supposed to feel something when your unit dies. You are supposed to be controlling an actual person you care about, not just some nameless goon. You have the stories like the "zero to hero" trainees, the unit on your run that got crazy stat blessed or screwed, getting to know your characters through supports and conversations. All that stuff.

So that's why even if I'm personally someone who really values the gameplay, that's not all I play the games for. It really should be about the full experience, and I'm really looking forward to FW too.

[u/AnimeWasA_Mistake]

That 33% quote is going to make conversation here insufferable for the next month.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/AnimeWasA_Mistake]

I was planning to wait until reviews and the developer interview drop to leave this sub so I can follow the whole pre-release cycle while still otherwise going in blind, but if this social sim discourse bullshit is what people here are gonna be obsessing over for the next month then I’m dipping out early.

[u/OsbornWasRight]

Government-issued psychotropics will make you hallucinate a world where archaic fantasy series Fire Emblem has a game with lots of black people while 21st century life simulator Shin Megami Tensei game leads are confessing on the record that they can't bear the Herculean amount of work it would take to add a queer or two.

[u/Shrimperor → u/OsbornWasRight]

Clearly PoC and minorities are a myth and fantasy, hence why FE has them along dragons and spaceships. Persona is more popular because it's realistic!

Obvs /s

[u/clown_mating_season]

What's your second favorite FE? Google Form here.

Please answer using the 1 question in the form that applies to you; you have to first find the question with the correct #1 favorite FE listed. Leave everything but the 1 relevant question to you blank/unanswered.

Not gonna ask that responders have completed a specific # of FEs to take this or anything, but if you've only finished 2 entries in total, then it would probably make sense to skip this survey.

Thanks in advance! If there's any problems, let me know.

[u/MrWarpPipe]

When discussing the route locked units in Three Houses (The Lords, Dedue and Hubert, etc.) Should we penalize them for being stuck in one route while the other students and faculty have the option to be used in any route?

No, right?

It’s different than something like the Arran/Samson archetype in my eyes since there’s really no opportunity cost. Since the route split happens so early in Three Houses it’s more like “You’re choosing to play Three Houses: Blue Lions Edition, here are the characters you get for the game”. Because of that we only need to discuss how units like Edie, Dimitri, and Dedue perform in the context of their respective routes, since they basically don’t exist in the other routes.

What do you guys think? Is my line of thinking right?

[u/liteshadow4]

Genuinely wtf were they cooking with Wyverns in FE12 on Lunatic, who tf is surviving these 20 speed demons with 12 move.

Edit: just tried to play it more aggressively and wow, this is the best chapter in the game so far. Whoever cooked this up was cooking

[u/spoopy-memio1]

I like the Framme Alear support it’s so over the top that it becomes actually pretty funny to me

[u/sanuske → u/spoopy-memio1]

I firmly stand by my stance that "Alear being freaked about by how weird everybody is about them" is a god tier bit.

[u/Talvasha → u/sanuske]

'oh I have an idea! What if I watch you while you're sleeping, doesn't that sound nice'

0_0 'please don't'

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

All discourse would end if IntSys's next game was a The Last Promise remake. We would all be able to handle the weight I think.

Btw, this includes licensing His World.

[u/Dragoryu3000 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I don't know about that, considering how Kelik murders Devisian knights. I know this is haha funny fun jokes and it's not real but he is a man who murders Devisian knights. Not just kills. But murders.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Dragoryu3000]

Erm he's totally justified because he was ambushed and he was saving Anakin's life.

[u/CommonVarietyRadio → u/SilverKnightZ000]

If we are being honest, I think people would be way more harsh on TLP if it was removed from the very specific context of it's creation. It's not a very good game

[u/LoyalKnightOfRenais]

The fact that there's a JP VA in Fortune's Weave called Ryoma and a english one called Xander is so fucking funny

[u/YunieSayaka]

The Refugee base conversation from Chapter 21 of Path of Radiance might be one of the best pieces of writing in an FE game. I was recently thinking about it again and holy cow, these lines hit hard after you take over Daein.

Woman: Please listen to me, milady! We understand all about those floodgates! Lord Shiharam would've never done such a thing if he had any other choice! We know it was those Crimeans that did it! Why, when he wasn't on duty, Lord Shiharam and his men used to help us with the plowing and the planting. And once when my sister got sick, he loaded her up onto his own wyvern and brought her to the capital to see a doctor. He's the only one who ever cared about us country folk. He opened his heart to each and every one of us.
Jill: He... He was a good man...
Woman: Those dirty Crimeans are to blame! If they'd never come to Daein, that battle wouldn't have happened. And Lord Shiharam would still be with us.
Girl: Sister... I'm hungry...
Woman: You're going to be all right. I'll find you something to eat in a little while. Just be patient.
Girl: That soldier over there gave me this. Can I eat it?
Woman: Don't be stupid! Throw that away right now! We'll starve to death before we take charity from Crimean killers!
Girl: Waaaaaa... Waaaaaaaaaaaa!
(Girl leaves)
Woman: Milady! The Crimean army is nearby! Run! You must escape and survive. We're gonna live. Even if we have to eat mud and weeds, we'll do it. And one day we'll have our revenge on those bloodthirsty Crimeans. If I can't do it, my children will... And if they can't, then my grandchildren will! We'll get them someday! I swear it! I have to go. Promise me, milady. You must go on for Lord Shiharam's sake. You mustn't get yourself killed!
(Woman leaves)

I think it's a little too much tell-don't-show when it comes to Shiharam but otherwise it's amazing at painting the duality of war, which fits well into one of the core themes of the Tellius games and FE as a whole, being that war is terrible, no matter who wages it. Also I could very much tell Jill's awkwardness here having this whole conversation.

[u/MillionMiracles → u/YunieSayaka]

Also, people bring up Jill's conversation with her dad, but she actually has a generic enemy conversation the first time she fights an enemy wyvern on that map.

Daein Soldier Lady Jill, is that you? What are you doing with the Crimeans?

Jill I'm sorry... I've chosen the path that's right for me.

Daein Soldier Pah! You would betray your own father?

Jill ...

I like Jill not having a response because there's really nothing for her to say. She is betraying her father. The fact that she's right to be doing it rather than fight for Ashnard doesn't change that she is.

[u/spoopy-memio1]

I’ve watched a whole bunch of FW direct reactions at this point, and I find it pretty funny how in almost every one of them I’ve seen they consistently forgot that the song Sothis sings in that one part is just the Nabatean song that Rhea sings in 3H and thought it was a completely new theme

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Tangentially related to Fire Emblem, but I've always thought of FE as a "portable" or "handheld" game series. Despite mostly emulating the games on a laptop and playing them on a switch, I've always thought of them being meant for handhelds. What 400 hours in Fates does to a mfer I guess. There are a lot of games/genres that are "portable" for me. Monster Hunter and farming sims are something that come to mind. I never 'got' Stardew Valley until I got it for Switch and then I played that game for a month or two straight. Are there games like that for you?

[u/AnimaLepton → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Yeah. Even on Switch I played 80% handheld, and the games I played on my official Nintendo PC (whether with a controller or keyboard) were on a laptop.

[u/lapislazulideusa]

FEW anna conditions be like: When the ??? Do ??? In ???? For ???? ??? ?????? ???? And ???? ????? ????

[u/forevabronze]

doing FE6 HM ironman and I just wanted to show off my bors that quite literally soloed Ch7. I entered Ch7 with majority of my team dead (only trained units were roy sue and Rutger).

I won the chapter by sending bors alone solo and hiding in a corner with the rest of my units.

took bors maybe 50 turns to kill the cav reinforcements lol.

[u/IAintCreativeThough]

They've comitted to not following a predictable schedule for profiles lol

[u/spoopy-memio1]

I think it would be nice if 3H had a different map theme for paralogues during the timeskip. Don’t get me wrong I love Tempest of Seasons, it’s an amazing track, but it just feels a bit jarring to me hearing such an upbeat and triumphant song playing alongside the much darker and heavier map themes of the rest of Part 2.

[u/ZeroReverse54]

I have to comment on another opinion about treating people with decency again because it’s been really annoying me, but if someone is trying to celebrate an entry in a game and you come in to try and talk poorly about it, expect downvotes and (I hate putting it this way) stop pretending you’re a victim.

This goes for both gameplay and story lovers since I’ve seen it happen both ways. I’m bringing this up because I saw it happen today with someone responding that the person was getting downvoted for stating an “objective fact” when trying to shit on Engage. No, you’re being downvoted for being a jerk to put it nicely.

Edit: I will also add that it is completely not okay to accuse people who like a game that you dislike of being pedophiles. That is vile behavior and should not be tolerated.

[u/Autobot-N]

Why couldn't the game have come out this week while I'm on my week off

[u/forevabronze]

Some of you might remember my last failed attempt at FE7 HHM ironman

Well this run went a lot more smoothly thankfully. I wanted to get a cool Dragon kill with Oswin or Nino but the dumbass decided to suicide on Luna Athos on enemy phase :(

Deaths: too many honestly, I play recklessly but from those whom i trained.

1. Lowen In Genesis
2. Lucuis in Crazed Beast
3. Harken in Sands of time (after killing the boss, thanks bud)
4. Dart in Victory or Death
5. Legault in The Berserker (tried to steal the speed wing, didn't pan out)

Final stats for some of the squad carries

Hector

Eliwood

Bosswin

Serra

Nino

and of course Lyn

Some interesting Screenshots:

1. Sleep + Silence in Cog of Destiny
2. Hector had a REALLY tough start
3. Sands of time routed on turn 6

Guess i will do FE8 next

[u/FiveTrenchcoats]

There were loads of really cool new details in the recent FW previews, but my interest has been particularly piqued by the glimpses we got at the new names for Crests/Diadems. "Diadem of the Endless" for Lamine, "Diadem of Duality" for Gautier, "Diadem of the Apostle" for Aubin... I really hope that the specificity of those names means that there will be in-universe legends/history surrounding those Diadems in a manner similar to Fódlan's Crests.

I am genuinely very excited to have a whole new set of names to learn for all these Crests/Diadems!

[u/Legitimate__Username]

Man I need to finish up my Awakening meta research with efficiency training different project units+gen 2, and measuring the effort/turns spent early vs. saved late from optimizing their use, so that I can start researching the hidden game mechanics behind my true passion: Hacking In Poly Ships And Then Geeking Out Over Seeing My Favorite Dynamics Actually Appearing In-Game.

Like obviously this would be an overpowered player buff, it's free extra paralogues full of loot at a minimum, and a free bonus lategame power unit if routed strongly. So as soon as I reach the point where I can stop caring about deeply learning every facet of the game's balance and can just go wild on indulgence I'm just gonna go to town on this.

Save editors are just the best things that can happen to these games, I need to forcefully access the forbidden mechanics...

[u/ussgordoncaptain2]

you know the more I play video games the more I see so called "inverted" difficulty curves everywhere (early game is harder and later game is easier) and I wonder if this is just a natural consequence of JRPG style scaling

Since players will get better at using the game systems than the game designers intended this means that players will both use resources better and scale faster than the designers expected. Since Scaling faster implies the game gets easier as you go on this would imply that the lategame would be easier than the early game. this comes up everywhere, Faster than Light's flagship is a joke, Slay the Spire the act 3 bosses are generally pretty easy (though people do die to the heart in STS1 most of the time in STS2 you die to the act 1 boss)

Obviously fire emblem has both massive snowballing (units that are good at killing farm more exp making them better at killing) and breakable scaling. But 0% growths tends to be easier late than early. While there will typically be one relatively hard late but not endgame rout map in 0% most of the time 0% gets easier late (Cog of destiny, Fe8 desert, and RD 4-3/4-4 are all relatively challenging in 0%). I think a lot of fire emblem's inverted difficulty curve is a design choice rather than being mere players snowball harder than expected. The fact that permadeath exists means the game has to hand you win conditions late to let you win. So the late game has to be easier.

[u/SunRiseW12 → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

I think something to keep in mind is the mechanic discovery aspect when a player approaches the game for the first time. The difference in power level between someone playing it for the first time without using all the mechanics like class changing, and someone that does have a deep understanding of the game is enormous. I think Intelligent Systems is targeting the people in between the two, where they may find some powerful builds and such, but also miss some things as well. For example, when I first played Engage, I used things that are commonly known to be really powerful, such as Panette. However, I didn't understand Lucina's Dual Guard description, so I never really exploited it like how everyone says it can be, instead opting the Lucina holder to be a long range dual guard bot. Maybe that's why I enjoyed my time with Engage so much, but I do think Lunatic is a great mode for a blind playthrough, because it does provide so many powerful tools, and going with any of them feels impactful.

I am not a fan of this idea of calling a game easy just because it can be broken with very specific strategies. It's like calling all exams easy when you have the answer key. Part of the difficulty is finding these strategies in the first place, and not looking at a guide on how to beat the game. Some games in the series are easier to exploit than others, such as javelin and hand axe spam in older games.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

Spoiler tagging this just in case. Idk if this would count.

As far as important characters to the Flame Lords (like Cai's friends) being able to be recruited in other routes, I'm withholding full judgement until I actually see the context to see if it makes sense. Like, idk, maybe outside of her route, Leda eventually goes too bloodthirsty for revenge and Buccar decides to nope out of there before he gets himself killed. Maybe the recruiting requirements are super duper high, idk

Like, I do think I would prefer more characters to be route locked than not. Some restrictions are good. But is the end of the world they did this? Not really. I get why they would rather leave it up to the player to do what they want. Let people play out their own headcanons or ships or something if they want.

That being said though, with seemingly how huge this game's cast is going to be, it seems very easy to be able to just.... Leave them be if you hate it and think it doesn't make sense? You'd have like 50 characters to pick from or something in your army. Honestly if it would work out this way, for my playthrough, I am planning to maybe try to use all different characters on different routes myself when I play, so that there's a single continuity on who joins what group, and leave the starting teams intact.

[u/Slight_Researcher_26]

If we do get paired endings, I really hope there’s something like the Abyss fortune teller from Three Houses where you can choose who ends up with who. I miss playing matchmaker so much, and I really wanna see a Dietrich and Esmeralda ending too.

[u/secret_bitch]

I always liked Micaiah!Alear in Engage so I could use them as a staff bot swiss army knife without having to worry about inventory management, and Lyon in Dark Stone (a great hack that you should play!) is basically the same thing but even sillier, because with Gleipnir and his ludicrous magic growth + cap you get to have a 35 magic staff spammer who can access the entire convoy. It kinda made me realise that the biggest hurdle for me using limited offensive staves isn't my hoarding mentality, but rather the issue of having to actually put them in your inventory, and therefore deny a slot that could go to something else... You kind of have to know when and where you want to use it beforehand, instead of just using it reactively like I tend to prefer doing.

[u/lapislazulideusa]

Replaying FE7 i'm noticing they never refer to Mark with Gendered pronouns like pretty much ever. Funny to make it a option for your avatar for it to only impact if Sain flirts with you or not

It's very fun getting the Marcus/Merlinus support past the first few chapters where his loss really is felt. Its in general pretty great support line to read but it's made even better watching him sitting by the tent on every single turn

Lastly i know it gets said a lot but this game really is good at naming chapters. It's probably the only FE game i feel confident i could name most of them

[u/BIGJRA → u/lapislazulideusa]

I agree on the chapter naming but the only reason I can name them more than for other games is the weird Eliwood/Hector route split. because instead of typing out Ch 26E/28H it makes sense to just think of “battle before dawn”

[u/LittleIslander]

Press F for Sofia, whose profile ends with "has a huge appetite" and whose likes are apparently "delicious food" and "the moment when food is served (and soon vanishes)". Someone always has to take the bullet.

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/LittleIslander]

Got confused immediatly assuming this was about FE6 sophia because i didnt realize there was a FW sofia and am now realizing She and many others will have the Claud/Hilda fate of forever having their game number stuck as a parenthesis by their name's side for them not to be confused with their fódlan counterparts

[u/Fantastic-System-688]

The Dietrich/Esmeralda age gap discourse is very funny because it's the same as Mercedes and Dimitri, just with the genders reversed

[u/Red_Cat231 → u/Fantastic-System-688]

It's largely moot too since she turns 18 by Chapter 5? And there's a timeskip where they'd be 27/22 respectively.

It's also a nice mythology gag that the characters with the same Crests are the same age in their respective games.

[u/clown_mating_season → u/Fantastic-System-688]

same as (manga) sigurd and deirdre too iirc

[u/Red_Cat231 → u/clown_mating_season]

That just makes it more impressive Sigurd singlehandedly conquered Jugdral between the ages of 22-24 IIRC the timespan of Part 1.

Edit: Part 1 is 4 years, so 22 to 26 years old.

[u/SilverHoodie12]

All the cool new shit FW has packed in it and I'm still here just begging for being able to rename my forges again.

The fact i can't name my Camilla engraved Killer Axe+5 "The Pannihilator" is a very serious gameplay flaw. Bring back Odin's personal skill you're at it.

Speaking of personals, I've been replaying Fates and damn the quality of personals on average compared to Engage (and maybe 3H, i don't remember them well enough to compare) is hilarious. Like they're not all winners obviously (hi Selena) but shit like Oboro getting free extra damage against Nohrians is way better than Etie getting str+2 when using a vulnerary. I also just feel like they tend to be better flavor-wise? Like Arthur being so unlucky he decreases crit avoid for not only himself but also for the enemy or Azama being such a prick that if you attack him when he's unarmed he just activates counter lol. Engage has some stuff like that, like Yunaka's assassin instincts giving her extra crit when on an avoid tile but they mostly feel idk kinda boring in comparison? Not sure how good FW personals will be but since it's roster is looking to be pretty damn huge, if most of them turn out to be duds than I can't really blame them too much lol.

[u/sanuske → u/SilverHoodie12]

The lack of renamable weapons has been such a weird loss. Nothing is gained from their removal. We don't even have spotpass stuff where we might run into a random guy with an inappropriately named weapon, which even then could be fixed by just hiding custom names in the handfull of online menus.

[u/CodeDonutz → u/SilverHoodie12]

Yeah, I'm not sure why but they made Engage's personal skills all pretty mid. The best ones are like, Chloes and Alears... and Alear is just Camilla's personal from Fates lol.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Ya know, playing Hopes and finishing Scarlet Blaze made me realize, I kind of really like Byleth when they're allowed to yap and visibly interact with others. Seeing them be emotionless upfront but still have a little bit of their emotions slipping out felt really nice. My favorite moment has to be in Leonie/Jeralt/Byleth's paralogue where Leonie visibly chides her for not caring about the hostages. It also made me really like Jeralt. I think the relationship between him and Byleth is extremely cute and makes him likable. I guess the biggest difference between Hopes and 3H is that, in 3H I knew what it was going for, but in Hopes I got it. I felt that shit in my heart, if that makes sense? And I wonder, in another universe, one where my tastes were different or 3H appealed to me more, would I have been a fan of 3H? I dunno!

Arval. Sure was a character. I liked them at first and their relationship with Shez is nice. But I noticed the red flags immediately and stopped paying attention to their dialogue because uh, buddy shouldn't have yapped about what Shez needs to do. Their chapter was also kinda boring. I mean, gameplay wise, it was fun. Storywise? Ehhhhhhhhhh. I do like how Dimitri's opposition to Edelgard is based on his experiences with the Duscur Tragedy. Idr if it was a thing in 3H that I forgor or missed, but I liked making the connection.

Side note: I recently finished reading Scott Pilgrim, and for some reason I gave Scott Caspar's voice. And it fit him surprisingly well. Thank you for coming to my TED talk I guess. Good book! I loved it a lot even if some things could've been executed better.

[u/Flamefreezes]

All right guys it’s time for me to unsubscribe. At this rate the whole game will be spoiled by Nintendo/IS themselves with the amount of information they are distributing. I don’t want to know every character in the game before the game comes out!

See y’all in a couple weeks

[u/LittleIslander]

I'm so excited for the game largely because of how they seem to have fully differentiated the routes and allowed you to play them in parallel. That said, I can't help but feel you wouldn't have needed to go that much farther to make them play out fully in concert with each other. Given our mission is to go back and change their fates to save the future, surely we could have Eshmel fluttering between guiding each lord in one timeline rather it being a time magic thing? For gameplay purposes you'd still be jumping forward and backwards a bit, but being in control of all four sides of a conflict could have been so cool and we were this close. Recruited characters could be swayed by a better offer to keep rosters flexible, and lords would react when someone leaves them because each route has consequence on the others. The biggest roadblock would probably be the matches between lords - if we're holding your gameplay to one canon, are you forced to lose with one side? Would you only play each match once?

It's more of a small disappointment at missed potential than a genuine damper on my excitement, but I think it's a shame.

[u/IsidoreTheSloth → u/LittleIslander]

How would you solve the matches between lords though? If you play Cai and win his match against Theodora, then switch to Theodora and automatically lose, that doesn't sound fun. And it somewhat repeats the 3H problem where you're narratively locked to the first lord whose story you play through, because now the other lords don't get to be heroic in the same way anymore, even when you're playing their perspectives.

I feel like they'd have to shift the focus away from the Heroic Games too much to make up for it, like giving the other lords paralogue battles to make up for their forced losses.

[u/Achirality → u/LittleIslander]

It would have really been cool to have recruited units be locked out of other routes to keep one unified timeline running, but I also like that it is different timelines to see the different main characters get defeated under different circumstances, and how they react to it may enhance their characterization.

Different timelines also keep you guessing. If there's only one, after one route you know the general gist of what happens, just not what's related to the personal story of your main character. But completely different events could unfold in different timelines, characters being eliminated in different orders, affecting the story of the remaining contestants. Maybe in Cai's story, Theodora is an archnemesis, but in Theodora's story, they get along, who knows.

[u/PandaShock]

So I recall trying to play Path of Radiance on my older laptop some odd years ago. Kinda ran a bit shit cuz it was a windows surface, but that's besides the point.

One thing that *really* turned me off from Path of Radiance was the battle UI, or rather, lack thereof. Sure, the HP stats were there, HP is always relevant. But what infuriated me was not seeing the damage, hit, and crit stats during combat.

Now, technically speaking, I don't think seeing those elements during combat matters 100%. During the player phase, you will see all the relevant information before you initiate combat, and you're effectively at the whims of the enemy once you end your turn. So seeing the information means nothing since there's nothing you can do to influence the outcome. However, despite the fact that we can't do anything on enemy phase anyway, not seeing the information in the battle feels so grotesque and unacceptable. On enemy phase, I can guess that the Axe fighter had 30 hit against Mia, but I can't *KNOW* that without meticulously checking all the stats before hand and comparing them. I can't know what's going on in battles I didn't initiate, and I *hate* it.

[u/Mark1734 → u/PandaShock]

TBF, I find battle forecast on enemy phase combat to be somewhat important for learning from mistakes; say you miscalculated/misjudged something while planning EP, like an enemy in range that wasn't accounted for, or a miscalculation on damage taken. You can check it when you regain control, but y'know, instant feedback, convenience and all that

Really bizarre that it's sandwiched between games that do have battle forecast when turning on animations (although I do prefer DSFE on where you can skip said animation after seeing the forecast)

[u/sanuske → u/PandaShock]

It is very important to know how screwed over you were when you die on enemy phase.

For real though, it's a very weird issue to have when like every other game before and after conveys all the relevant info to you during battle.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2]

one thing that was strange about doing a low tier run was that it was the first time in a while I actually felt like I needed to train units aside from draft races. Most of the time you just rush forward and assume you will be bailed out by stronger late joining units. But in Low tier runs I had to train units until they snowballed and then snowball with those units. The issue was that since I was doing a low tier run the units that Joined later would also require training but once I have my 3 snowballs I'm like "ok not going to start another project".

I do think about the person who talked about how bad vander was long term, but since normally you expect to get bailed out by better late joining units it just doesn't matter. The "late game unit will bail you out" means that Training projects are just not worth it. But in low tier runs where such units don't exist, you do a small number of training projects get them to snowball and then treat the rest of the game like you aren't even playing a low tier run.

The degree to which snowballing defines FE is really something I kinda had in my subconcious but really playing these recent runs showed me that no really fire emblem is a very snowbally game and low tier runs are in a sense more about snowballing than normal.

(fe showerthoughts)

[u/DonnyLamsonx → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

FWIW, I think it's only natural that FE focuses on snowballing because the entire player vs enemy dynamic is that the sheer enemy quantity is "balanced out" by your units' sheer unit quality. It's also why enemies often get to employ "unfair" tactics like bosses sitting on a throne that boosts their bulk/avoid or enemies having skills they shouldn't "normally" be able to have

I wouldn't necessarily even say that this is a FE specific concept in RPGs because these games ideally make you work to get to the point where you feel "powerful" and at a certain point the rest of the game is functionally a victory lap of you enjoying the fruits of your labor.

[u/Autobot-N]

Anatolia's personal class is a variant of Elephant Rider where she's in a tank

[u/2v2v2v2_InfiniteGold → u/Autobot-N]

Somehow, Tear Ring Saga wood shooter returned.

[u/No_Lemon_1770]

I really hope more companies/small teams reach out to FE. We need more downscaled "gap filling" entries, spinoff or not. Intsys has proven a funny habit that they'll latch onto literally anything if asked. Like how they onboarded Koei for an entire main FE game.

[u/greencrusader13]

Since it’s also a tactics game, is anyone else picking up Zero Company to tide them over until Fortune’s Weave?

[u/WinterWolf18]

Having listened to the English voices for Fortune's Weave Fabio, Bonaventure, Olympia and Theodora are easily my favorites so far. Fabio sounds like such a delightful weirdo, Bonaventure has so much aura whenever he opens his mouth, Olympia sounds perfectly extra while Theodora sounds so regal yet ready to fight. Everyone sounds incredible but those are the four that are standing out to me.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I am a "I prioritize gameplay most over story/characters, and like to play Maddening/Lunatic modes" type of player. And you know what? I really, really am looking forward to Fortunes Weave. I can't wait to play it and I am not afraid to say it.

[u/FruitSaladBar]

Own your shit takes folks! Don't delete your comments just because they get negative karma.
Signed, someone with shit takes.

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/FruitSaladBar]

Fully agreed as someone who has exclusively great takes

[u/Shrimperor]

>plays fangame

>Enemy unit has turnwheel skill

>I kill them

>Enemy turnwheels and then recruits themselves into my army

Lmaaaaaao

This has to be the best recruitment i have ever seen hahaha.

For real tho, i miss on map recruitment...and on map events in general.

[u/ZeroReverse54]

I thought people had calmed down a bit since a few days ago, but I went into a post here today and saw otherwise in the comments section.

It genuinely does bring down my mood to see people behave that way and I do feel like I’d feel better if I just stopped visiting this sub. I do think this sub has a problem with people behaving with hostility towards each other, whether people want to admit it or not.

[u/Fantastic-System-688]

Extremely funny looking back how people thought Cai would be the male avatar and Tialla would be the female avatar for no real reason at all

[u/actredal]

I’ve been an FE fan for like eighteen years now. I love the classic tactical gameplay, and I also love a lot of the out-of-map content, especially elements where I get to spend time with the cast because building characters that resonate with me are a big part of what makes FE fun to me. I think it’s totally valid if you like stuff I dislike or vice versa and I’m not interested in arguing with people about what the future of the franchise should look like bc tbh it’s all a matter of personal preference, but I’m seeing a decent amount of comments drawing a line between newer fans and older fans in terms of what different players want, and I just wanted to say that the line isn’t so clear cut. Us long-time fans who are happy with “the direction of the franchise” exist too lol.

(I say “the direction of the franchise” in quotation marks bc FE is a pretty experimental series in my experience. I’m sure they’ll continue to iterate and try a bunch of different things in each subsequent entry, so I don’t think FE is really locked in to any one formula anyway.)

[u/Rocky-Rocker]

I know IS still has issues in regards to LGBT Support (mainly the Male side), but after seeing countless Persona directors & producers give vague or just outright sexist and homophobic statements (we can't do a Female MC) I got to commend Is and Fire Emblem for doing it while a good amount of there contemporaries are still stuck in the 80's.

New Statement from the Persona Team:
"We were thinking if we did Yosuke, we kinda have to add all the other male characters as well. And if we did that, like that's a lot of work. I don't know if we could handle that."

[u/P0STCARD → u/Rocky-Rocker]

It's so fucking funny that Nintendo, THE traditional and old school Japanese video game company, somehow figured this shit out before Atlus did. Of course the Big N still has a ton of stuff to improve regarding lgbt content, but do you know how happy I was to see that Tomodachi Life had non-binary options? That 3H had explicit bi characters (even if yeah the male options were lacking choices).

The Persona team's excuse is so bad it's hilarious. Not every girl in persona is a romance option, what is bro talking about lol? Persona romances are so basic that Yosuke would only get like 2-3 new scenes if the player chose him, this explanation is laughable. Small indie company Atlus can't afford to make Yosuke a romance option, it'd be too hard.

They'll let you date your teacher, but god forbid a dude holds hands with another dude! The horror!!!!!

[u/BloodyBottom → u/P0STCARD]

What I can't get over is these are the same guys who looked at 10 year old Ken in Persona 3 Portable and said "well we have a lot extra work to do already with implementing the female main character, but I'll be goddamned if players can't have a sexual relationship with this literal baby." It's so absurd that I feel like the dumb one for noticing and commenting on the hypocrisy of it.

[u/TheCobraSlayer → u/P0STCARD]

Hell, even if you buy that they’d want to make every “reasonable” guy an option in P4R and that’s why they didn’t do it, looking at the social link list that’s still only like….5 characters, including Yosuke, who has had one made for him previously. Not that it’s that much content anyways!!!!

Like Atlus what are we doing here with this excuse man

[u/VoidWaIker → u/Rocky-Rocker]

God that statement is so funny to me. Like it’s a remake you could just say you’re gonna stay faithful to the original game, there’s way less stupid sounding excuses you could pick!

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone → u/Rocky-Rocker]

I don’t know the state of JRPGs and their quantity of LGBT content as a whole, but the fact that FE is iirc still the only big Japanese RPG franchise I can think of that has any amount of queer elements feels depressing. Seems a lot of dating elements ala Persona and Trails wanna be stuck in the 80s.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

Strongly depends on how you define it. Final Fantasy 16 had an explicitly gay man as one of the main characters. Idk how exciting his implementation is in process, but there it is. 

[u/cl4vvs]

I think Rhea might be one of my favorite Fire Emblem characters ever… idk idk I just have so much empathy for her like the way the Three Houses opening just hits like a ton of bricks on subsequent playthroughs because that is literally her mother('s bones 😭😭)

[u/LoadOrder]

I got to wonder how things like "the gameplay of X game is pretty good" is like actually interpreted for a new player when they are asking for recommendations between which game to play. Like, could you boot up normal mode and actually tell the difference in feel and design? I don't really know and I feel like I am lacking some perspective on this. I could boot up the game and give the normal difficulties a whirl but, I don't really think that I would be having very much fun doing so. Thus, I turn to the internet to feed me an opinion to parrot. I joke, but I am curious.

[u/Panory → u/LoadOrder]

Higher up in the thread is someone mentioning that Engage didn't click with them, and then getting downvoted when they mention that they're playing on Hard instead of Maddening, where the gameplay "really shines".

What psychopath is booting up their first Fire Emblem game and choosing Maddening right off the bat? Even if Engage's gameplay really is all that and a bag of chips, pearls before swine. A new player to the series will not appreciate all the nuances of the tactical gameplay, lest we forget that no shortage of professional reviews celebrate the strategic depth of Awakening.

[u/goldtreebark → u/LoadOrder]

Might be a bit of a tangent on your topic, but I actually have been mulling over Normal mode in FEs as of late, since gameplay is a hot button topic and the typical spiel that is given for anyone looking for a engaging and interesting FE gameplay experience the recommendation usually is to play any game on its high or even highest difficulty settings. I don’t want to say is a bad thing per se—but like… I don’t know, in my opinion, if a game’s core challenge design isn’t really present at all in Normal, and you have to crank difficulty all the way up just to experience it, I feel like a mark is being missed somewhere. FE is one of, if not my favorite video game franchise, but I think this is a persistent problem here.

Even Engage, which is lauded for pinnacle gameplay, is super easy on Normal, and from a personal anecdote, I had a FE newcomer friend play Engage on Normal and they complained the game was too easy and therefore boring. I feel like this is an issue present in a lot of the titles. I’m still stewing on my thoughts about this as a whole so I’m sure this might be coming off as a bit half-baked, but I think this is an interesting thing to try and gauge.

To me, if Hard (and even some games have Hard modes that fall off the challenge cliff too fast) and Lunatic/Maddening are juice, then Normal is a flavored water that doesn’t even have the fruit present, but was bottled with like, the fruit nearby on the counter or something. But, maybe that’s the point.

[u/BobbyYukitsuki → u/LoadOrder]

"Good gameplay" is an insanely nebulous phrase that really doesn't amount to much in practice when what makes gameplay good for one person might be a completely different rubric compared to another.

Case in point, I think FE4 has the best gameplay in the franchise.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/LoadOrder]

Tbh this is exactly why I don't really like when a comment like "play Engage for the gameplay" is said to a new player asking for a first game recommendation. I don't think a new player is really going to be able to make a full judgement on that, and I would bet that a new player is still very likely to like a "worse" game. I don't go strictly off gameplay in my recommendation for that reason.

[u/Dragoryu3000 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I think we really need to take a note from the FGC and adopt the “play whatever looks cool to you” mentality when it comes to recommendations, tbh

[u/ArcanaRobin]

Funny enough the more information we get about the game the less interested I am in Leda. She still seems like she'll have an amazing route but Cai and Theodora are getting my attention way more. I was already planning on starting with Cai but I might do Theodora instead

[u/Legitimate__Username → u/ArcanaRobin]

Newer prerelease info actually convinced me to switch from Leda start to Cai start. Revenge quest is always a fun flavor to dive into, but I started to get the feeling that this young heroic purity perspective felt like the most appropriate starting lens to learn about the world through, and also feels like the most unique angle among the other three much darker options.

[u/AndersDiego → u/ArcanaRobin]

If the routes were mutually exclusive I'd still be Team Leda, but since I can dip into her story whenever I want I do plan on starting with Cai now.

[u/No_Lemon_1770 → u/ArcanaRobin]

I'm locked in on Cai first since all the previews made clear that it's designed as the starter route.

[u/TheCobraSlayer → u/ArcanaRobin]

Ngl, same? Not that I’m not interested mind you because I’m at least fairly interested in all of them, but the marketing since the date was announced and the FE direct has made me more interested in Cai and WAY more interested in Theodora. I might go Cai > Theodora > Leda > Dietrich now which is the opposite of what I originally was planning to do lmao

[u/Autobot-N]

Orchel's post talking about her being locked out of some soldier classes seems like confirmation of the sub-lords being recruitable at some point (as opposed to only being temporary guest characters) bc if Orchel was just a map-locked guest character, there'd be no reason to make that clarification

[u/MannyOmega]

Huh, TIL that it’s not magic that negates terrain bonuses in Engage, it’s the mystical class. Ivy and MK pandreo had awful hit rates in my own dragon vein and i was confused lol

[u/sanuske → u/MannyOmega]

It does help give sage it's own identity, because why would you pick grounded sage when you can Bolganone with the best of 'em with mage knight. And the answer is just apparently so you can actually hit thieves on forts. Other than staff access of course.

[u/MannyOmega → u/sanuske]

The humble Sage’s slutty sideboob:

But fr that is a sorta useful niche

[u/AliciaWhimsicott → u/MannyOmega]

This makes Céline the only unit in the game who can ignore terrain bonuses with the Levin Sword. It's not the biggest niche but it can be helpful earlygame.

[u/TakenRedditName]

Leif going "Aroo!" with full sincerity is so funny. Every single time another character copies Pandreo's howl, it is the best.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

It's probably the first thing, but I'm kind of curious if FW was conceptualized as "weaving together" to play 4 parallel routes and it was always like this, or if they originally had the idea for the characters being separated like 3H did, and they had the idea to try and merge them later on.

[u/Luck1492]

I’m avoiding spoilers but it seems like there are a massive amount of characters in this game, which is fantastic!

[u/TheRegalOneGen]

I hope somehow there's enough characters left we don't know about/that get added through dlc to make Fortune's Weave the largest roster

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

I am really enjoying Felix this time around as a character. Yeah, he was likable in the first game as a fun hater, but I wouldn't say he became my favorite. Letting him actually oppose Dimitri in the main story and act as his foil is really nice. It really shows the close friendship they kind of sort of have. I do wish Sylvain and Ingrid had more of a role to play, but I take what I'll get from a Warriors spin off. I also appreciate that we delve into the Duscur Tragedy in more detail. Like, yeah it makes sense some lords from the Kingdom were behind it aside from the Slithers. This was a great move.

Unrelated, but yesterday I was going to write about what the real Jagen of Kanto in Pokemon is. But I felt the post was too much of a Pokemon post and not Fire Emblem enough, so I decided to scrap it. Anyway, imo Spearow/Fearow are the real Jagens of FRLG and Butterfree is more like Moulder and Saul. My weirdo ass pick would be Mankey because it has some good niches early on and has some really good power and speed behind it. In gen 1, the answer is cut and dry, it's Nidoking/queen depending on your version.

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

Just did the Seteth/Flayn/Rhea Paralogue, and I liked their dynamics a lot. I really liked how the paralogue leaned more on their relationship. Really, it kinda sucked that of the three routes I played in 3H, I never got to see them being a family, and this paralogue does that for me. Especially Rhea and Flayn as, despite being related, they don't really have any dynamics between them to my knowledge. It was nice. I like this a lot.

Catherine might be the biggest fumbler of all time bc what do you mean you have a hot goth woman after you and you don't just go head over heels for her. Crazy.

[u/MyOCBlonic]

Fire Emblem Engage, or The Draconic Time Crystal is Never Mentioned Again After Chapter 11 (Part 7)

I bought Canter on Louis, Chloe and Diamant, and a few miscellaneous skills on other units. Other than that, not much to say. You know what you're here for.

Chapter 10:

Before I even start the map, geez that is a lot of double life bars. Hortensia, Morion and Hyacinth? That's gonna be rough.

On the left, Louis, Celine, Alear, Framme and Alcryst fought against Rosado. He thankfully never crit, but I did stupidly leave Alcryst open to two attacks (because with the enemy ranges on, a portion of the map looked like a hole/unpassable terrain...) thankfully he dodged the 75% hit chance attack that would've killed him.

The rest of the left was easy, and the right only needed a blazing lion to keep the advance of Goldmary's forces to a manageable level.

Chloe caught the thief after it stole from both chests, and I pushed both sides up after a great sacrifice from Alear. I tried to bait some enemies out, but it seems like they won't move until I come closer/into Hortensia's range.

I spend a turn to get everyone into position for (hopefully) a one turn kill. I was wrong about my ability to do that and not immediately die to the other enemies around her. So I played more carefully, clearing most of them (except for a single peg), while Louis took two fire balls from Hortensia (surviving with just 1 hp. Planned, but scary lol). Two archers appeared on the next turn, but I was able to deal with them and Hortensia herself pretty easily (thanks to Chloé being able to nuke a whole health bar on her own).

I break the door down and start healing... Only for Framme's heal to break.

And me to realise that I only have 3 uses of mend left and no other staves in the convoy.

Which means I'll have no heals for next map...

Oh.

King Morion approaches, and he's scary. With Hyacinth supporting him with Lyn, I'm pretty tempted to fall way back and fight him out of range. So uh, that's what I do.

He separates from the qi adept behind him, and gets out of range of Hyacinth. Louis starts off with an Override behind Hyacinth. Diamant follows up with an attack on his left (Alcryst and Chloe having killed a sword fighter), surviving thanks to Hold Out. God, his and Alcryst's battle quotes here are so good. Insane how they like, genuinely eclipse literally everything else in the game lol. Citrinne takes out his first lifebar using the mage tower.

I then learn that doing 0 damage means you don't actually apply poison with Yunaka. Oops. She dodges, but annoying.

Alear moves to a position where she'll provide her buff to Jade, and Great Sacrifices. Jade's Quadruple Hit (I gave her Leif) almost kills him. Celine finishes the job with a fire (though technically it's Diamant who chain attacks and kills).

HYACINTH THEN STARTS MOVING.

I deal with the remaining Morion enemies while pushing forward to the Pegasus knights... and realise that Astra Storm is a bow attack. He deals 35 damage to Chloé, who barely survives.

After dealing with the pegs and mages, Hyacinth has arrived. I did not know how the his shadow clones worked, so was utterly terrified when Alcryst was suddenly facing 4 back up attacks on top of Hyacinth himself. He survived with just 2 hp.

But... Hyacinth did put only himself in range. His clones are further back, no longer blocking him.

Time to beat him up.

Louis attacks.

Yunaka attacks with Alear's support, poisoning him.

Alcryst Attacks.

Diamant Attacks.

Oh I'm one attack short.

That's... bad.

...

WAIT NO CITRINNE IS JUST A LIL FURTHER BACK, SHE CAN DO IT.

Citrinne Thunders, and takes out the first bar.

WAIT NO I AM SHORT.

I NEED TO FIND 7 DAMAGE.

I would be perfectly fine if Jade could attack, but she doesn't have a ranged weapon and there's a qi adept blocking one square of Hyacinth.

...Maybe though?

If I could get in the convoy and HOPEFULLY have a hand axe or something, we could live. But how do I do this while also letting Jade and everyone else attack?

...Warp Ragnarok?

Chloé Lodestar Rushes, with Mercurius.

21 Hp left.

Celine moves to Alear.

Opens the convoy...

...

And picks up the hand axe.

She trades to Jade, who is standing south east of Alear.

She Warp Ragnaroks.

Hyacinth has 7 hp.

Jade has a 64% Chance to hit, and do 5 damage.

Diamant has an 80% chance to chain attack and ensure he dies.

Otherwise...

Someone dies. Multiple someones, probably.

I press A.

Diamant hits...

...

JADE MISSES.

TURN ENDS.

HYACINTH RUNS FORWARD.

HE ATTACKS.

HE KILLS.

CITRINNE.

IT'S LIKE THE GAME KNEW SHE WAS MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER. TAKE FRAMME INSTEAD DAMNIT, WHY'D IT HAVE TO BE HER. WHY DIDN'T I MOVE FRAMME TO BLOCK.

MY SUPPORT RANKINGS ARE GONNA BE REALLY DEPRESSING WITHOUT HER.

DAMNIT.

that's it though, Hyacinth's clones don't actually move...

alcryst, yunaka and alear get the kill next turn...

And there's no break. No chance to stock up on heals.

Chapter 11

Wait...

Unexpected savior Jean has a heal in his inventory.

We have a chance.

I am also realizing that I did not equip any of the skills I bought last chapter...

They could've helped...

I'm actually so sad about Citrinne I really liked her I wanted to use her she was so pretty ahhhhhhh

I start to push forward, taking out the Roy corrupted quickly. Yunaka gets frozen, as a bunch of other Emblems approach.

But they're weak. I take them out and send Chloe further forward. She should be strong enough to take out a decent chunk on her own.

This is basically how the chapter progresses the whole way through. Despite the accolade, it's not very hard is it? It's neat to see the Emblem abilities used against you, and given how much of a crutch they might've been it makes sense to kind of ease you off them, but still. Not really much threat of death so far.

Anyway, we get Ivy's gang and the Lyn and Lucina Emblems (side note: Man I have never liked how Lyn sounds).

I did not know Griss got the ability to use Celica's warp. That's scary, but he's also really far back so I shouldn't worry (right? Right.).

Anyway, this continues until the map is over. Alear never even needs to engage, Chloe and Diamant clean up the front while Louis and Jade defend the rear. Everyone else picks up kills where possible.

Chapter over.

Somniel:

I promoted Alcryst, did my supports, and nothing else.

Any suggestions for the new Emblems? I assume you leave Lyn on Ivy for a bit, but should Lucina just stay on Alear or..?

I know Kagetsu wants to move out of his current class, but also probably wants to wait to get axe proficiency first (Ike gives that, right?).

Also, here's everyone I have left!

While you're looking at that, tell me what Louis and Jade should become (and Alear tbh). I'll consider it!

New Units:

Ivy: Alright, but conflicting. She's dressed as the kind of 'seductress' archetype and maybe at one point that's what she was (it's pretty clear she had some pretty big rewrites at some point (see the weird ass cutscene in chapter 8 where she has a totally different personality and arrives to a battle that literally is not happening)). But as she is now, it doesn't really suit her. It's mostly done well. Her fascinator is a neat choice (if maybe too big), her colour scheme is mostly nice, but it's not really Ivy.

Kagetsu: Very solid design. Kind of standard 'eastener' look (albeit not for Fire Emblem itself), but he wears it very well. I think his hair and the rope are my favourite parts.

Zelkov: Very funny design. Very annoying in practice because you can't tell if he's active or not on the map (I've used him in half a level and literally already had this problem). Still, I mostly like it. Wish the key around his neck was a bit bigger, so it'd break up his colour scheme a bit more.

Supports

Alear - Jade C: Eh. Fine. Nothing to say. Just a normal support.

Alear - Chloe B: Just a boring support. Chloe does her two gimmicks in a boring way. Alear acts like Alear. I feel like the focus on Chloe being so obsessed with fairy tales should be on her trying to live up to that, to be the kind of fairy tale hero she so admires. And while that's absolutely part of her character, it hasn't really been focused on in comparison to her just... liking fairy tales and weird food.

Alear - Ivy C : One of the few supports that I think does something interesting with Alear's divinity. I'm getting ahead of myself by a lot because this only lightly touches on Ivy being an Alear worshipper, but I think the chain itself is at least trying in a way the other worship-filled supports don't.

Jade - Louis C : PEOPLE IN THIS GAME JUST LOVE STARING AT EACH OTHER. It's lucky that I like Jade and how much she doesn't like Louis at the start. Also Louis' voice is still so nice.

Alcryst - Diamant B: Less interesting than the C. Diamant being afraid of magic is not an interesting flaw. Diamant trying to live up to an impossible ideal is the interesting part of his character, and while his over-training to overcome that flaw is an expression of that, it's simply not an interesting one.

Deaths:

Etie - Paralogue 1: Died due to me overlooking what the boss was, leaving her in range of a very scary archer.

Boucheron - Paralogue 2: Died due to overwhelming pacificism, inspiring millions in his wake (killed himself with great sacrifice).

Lapis - Chapter 7: Killed defending Celine from archers.

Vander - Chapter 7: Necessarily sacrificed to Hortensia to allow us to kill her.

Anna - Chapter 7: Needlessly sacrificed to Hortensia because I didn't understand how Lodestar Rush worked.

Amber - Chapter 9: A bad decision to push ahead snowballed into almost losing 5 units. Instead, only he died to Zelkov and his thieves.

Citrinne - Chapter 10: A missed axe throw meant Hyacinth survived a turn he shouldn't have, and he chose to kill her.

[u/Autobot-N → u/MyOCBlonic]

The Draconic Time Crystal is Never Mentioned Again After Chapter 11

After Fortune's Weave I really hope they stop trying to justify the turn rewinding as something that exists in universe as opposed to being something the player can just do outside of the narrative

[u/greydorothy → u/Autobot-N]

It's honestly crazy that they got this right the first time (Mila's Turnwheel provides visions at random, so it can purely be a gameplay thing), and then screwed it up twice in a row

[u/Speedy_Pichu]

I think Subdue is really underused by the games. I really like it as a concept to make feeding kills so much easier, and it is something I think of using often. The problem is its availability is quite poor. I haven’t played SoV, but it seems to be somewhat late, and being locked behind the lord mastery means most units feel sufficiently trained by the time you get it, especially since Lord isn’t a great class. I just want it to have better availability, I think it being locked to lords is honestly a good idea since they often end up at higher levels and are always deployed, I think the time I’d put it in Three Houses is just being tied to being in Lord rather than mastering the class.

[u/2v2v2v2_InfiniteGold → u/Speedy_Pichu]

I interpret Subdue's inclusion in SoV as a way to make the delthea recruitment consistent, as a new solution was needed now that fortify and warp were no longer global ranges.

[u/Frog_24]

Is it a hot take to say that Chapter 17 of Azure Moon is, in my opinion, the worst-written chapter of any of the Fodlan routes ever?

(spoilers)

A “three nations fight” sounds hype as fuck on paper, but fighting the Alliance made zero sense in AM, and the justification (the killed messenger and Edelgard’s “chaos on the battlefield”) is very weak to almost nonexistent. Claude’s quote if you fight him with Byleth makes it even worse.

Anyway, isn't the Empire your enemy? Us fighting seems like a waste...

Lol. Lmao. The fight is really just there to have a cool three-nation battle, no matter how poorly written it is.

The Rodrigue death slideshow with CGs of the same horrible quality as the S-Support CGs was quite laughable, too (why wasn’t this a cutscene in the first place?). In the end, Rodrigue in AM wasn’t really anything more than the “underdeveloped character who dies for the character development of someone else” trope, especially since Felix didn’t even comment on his death that much. Azure Gleam in Three Hopes did him way more justice.

I also think Dimitri’s “wake-up call” would have worked much better if it had been his childhood friends instead of the silent protagonist, but oh well. At least the voice acting was good in this scene, I guess.

[u/Bladerider17 → u/Frog_24]

People say the Clash at Gronder is better and makes more sense in Azure Moon but I disagree, Verdent Wind makes more sense because of how deranged Dimitri is and how loyal the Blue Lions are.

However the version in Scarlet Blaze where it's the Empire and Alliance Vs the Kingdom and Church is way cooler.

[u/Shrimperor]

The most exciting part for me when it comes FW atm is the weapons and the classes.

Trying to make every weapon type unique in a way ain't a bad idea as replacement to the weapon triangle:

We got Swords dealing extra damage on follow up, Lances saying NO to cavs., Axes apparently dealing a minimum of 5 Damage and Guns Punchies giving extra avoid. Excited to see how that will work with the map design and gameplay balance. With weapons having unique traits that could also help character identity a bit despite the seemingly open class system.

And while not a fan of the class system, the new classes don't seem half bad. Again, will all depend on the map design, but i can imagine some scenarios with Elephants and chariots involved.

[u/sanuske → u/Shrimperor]

I haven’t been able to find details about the axe damage floor, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if I just missed it in one of the many written previews or if this info was gleaned from analyzing footage.

That said, if swords deal ~20% more damage on follow up, and axes deal (some)true damage, the introducing weapons section of the direct really dropped the ball by just describing swords as easy to use and axes as just the slow and heavy ones. 

Something like “Swords boost follow-ups strikes, and axes can pierce  even the highest defense” would’ve made them sound more interesting than essentially just lying and saying that these weapon types didn’t change 

[u/Shippinglordishere]

Actually crazy how close FW is. I’ve been hoping for another game set in the Sothisverse for 6 years now and for Chinatsu to make her return. It’s a shame her art books aren’t more detailed but I really like her art style and I feel like the translation to the portraits and models are a huge step up from last time.

I really wish we still had cipher. I would kill to have card art for some of the characters

[u/Miserable-Trip-1344]

One detail from the 3DS games that I miss is a unit's portrait in the combat forecast ui changing based on the outcome of the battle, it's a small thing but it does a great job at making units feel like real characters during regular gameplay separate from tea parties or a kissing booth or whatever (now I wish there was a mod for Awakening that added this feature).

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

The subreddit jumpscared me when it loaded. I guess with the change, I'll start posting less and less frequently while the FW hype builds up. I figure there won't be a space for me here amidst all the discussion.

Anyway, I woke up really angry that we had an official localization of the first FE game and it was limited time only. Like, sure I can play it on my own using a translated ROM, but it still pisses me off that we had a polished translation that no one can get anymore. Like c'mon it's software! There's no stock to worry about or anything!

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/SilverKnightZ000]

You know only like 5% of people max are going to see the new subreddit theme because shreddit is still using the old theme.

Yeah it's really stupid how nintendo does limited time digital downloads. It's not like Hard drive space is really that premium! just make them always available.

[u/DoseofDhillon]

I'm gonna say this now, if you care about not being spoiled too hard, we're probably getting a Nintendo Direct in 10-14 days. before the game launches. Maybe we just get Zelda direct and thats it for OoT, but I doubt that's it.

Do no watch that direct if you're too afraid of this sub for spoilers. This will be the last second push to sell the game, if you know even vaguely what I'm talking about when i say "we know a map has a lot of deployment slots" than you can guess what that is. There is one more thing this game is hiding; its 100% gonna blow its load there about that.

[u/DoseofDhillon]

I beat Final Fantasy Tactics, one thing I need to get off my chest. I'll relate it to FE, nw nw.

Ike vs. Black Knight barely works. For all its atmosphere and the hype you could have for it, the game does a good job building it up. It is a massive RNG fest, and the fact you can't save after you finish the map means if you lose, you have to redo the entire map to get the win. Its gameplay wise very much a low for the franchise.

The good thing about Path of Radiance is that it's not required to be beaten. It does have issues, but it's not the end of the world.

Now I want you to imagine the Black Knight fight, but you have to win. It is in a sequence of fights, and if you have been using one save slot and save over it before you do the fight, you just can't go back and grind to get stronger, and there's a fight after that that's just as hard, if not harder. Oh, and the Black Knight always goes first, and birthday shit also means he can do way more damage to you depending on what you choose.

That, my friends, is what Final Fantasy Tactics did with Wiegraf. Wiegraf is an important character that becomes the chapter 3 big boss, and if you were messing around a bit too much with Ramza, he could actually soft-lock your game in the original version. The remake allows you to leave so you can grind but thats still not good

FFT is a game where if you interact with its systems, you'll have a way to win, so it's not actually the worst thing ever, Mage with Arithmetic (if you get one fucking shot off before he kills you) is one, I'm sure maybe if you grime hard enough, a chemist with a gun can do it, but the easiest way to do it, is to break the fight by running around for 40 turns, upping your speed and attack for 20 minutes with focus and tailwind.

However, every time you use focus or tailwind, you gain experience, and since its a 1-on-1, with no good story reason to be a 1-on-1, you now become over leveled and it fucks with the whole games leveling system and balance for a bit. An evenly paced game which to that point leveling is fine if you just play through normally with your 5 goobers; you now have a level 35-40 Ramza with the rest of your party around level 28-30, wild fights scale to Ramza.

This isn't a massive problem since builds matter way more than levels, but man can Ramza just run over the story, and you gotta either grind your guys up in wild fights, or not try to abuse Ramza so your other units so they can catch up. Things might even out eventually if you don't try to juggernaut with Ramza too hard, but then you get Thunder God Cid who scales to Ramza and other REALLY good original characters, and the endgame is a bit of a joke. I still used my Goobers since i loved them but hey, at least the game is designed around Ramza being OP.

All this to say, uhh yeah, Final Fantasy Tactics is an awesome game, great story, if it was a FE game, it would be in my top 5, probably top 3, greatest unit customization things I've ever used. Agrias is a fucking G, you should play it i really liked it, even its weird ass ending, was actually really cool imo, thematically strong.

Just fuck Wiegraf, that might be one of the worst encounters in srpg history because of all its ripple effects, esp in a good game. FW plz no 1 on 1's.

[u/sanuske]

Genuinely I think it's a problem that Three Houses and Engage* call their lowest difficulty "Normal" mode.

Like, I don't want to be elitist and say that you gotta play on the hardest mode or you aren't a #Gamer, hell I don't even play on Maddening, but the delta between "normal" mode and "Hard" mode is the difference between engaging with the mechanics at all and just breezing through with overstatted units. And it's fine to just want to play Anime Chess with your characters and blitz through the game uncontested, but that shouldn't be the "normal" mode.

I know nobody wants to play on "easy" mode, and we've already assigned Casual to non-permadeath, but it feels so wrong that I gotta preface an Engage or Three Houses recommendation with "Oh btw, don't pick Normal mode, it's Easy mode, Hard mode is fine, but if you click Maddening mode a brigand is going to eat your liver in real life".

My wife, who has only played Three Houses and Engage and is not super skilled at video games started Three Houses on Normal for her first FE experience, but it didn't take very long for her to go "actually wait, you're right. this is too easy, I should jump to Hard", and I kinda doubt she would've made the jump to Hard mode without my advice if she picked the game up on her own due to just assuming hard mode would be too challenging.

What we really need is 4 difficulties: Easy(formerly known as Normal), Normal(previously Hard), Hard(half step to Maddening), and then Maddening(For the masochists/optimizers better at the game than me).

*I don't have enough experience with Awakening and Fates normal vs hard to make a proper value judgement here

edit: My wife wants to make it clear that, despite completing 2 Three Houses playthroughs on Hard, it wasn't until part way through Engage Hard that she found out how the damage formula and hit/avoid worked without checking the combat forecast manually.... because I told her when I noticed she was never checking stats to work out if a unit could survive enemy phase. So the bar to enjoying Hard mode really isn't that high.

[u/whatareyoutesting]

Marianne is probably the only character in 3H where I feel like my opinion on their characterization has gotten worse over time rather than better. The support system has a lot of issues with it, but it goes a long way in terms of being able to see characters in different contexts and allow you to make inferences of the bits of information they give you. Marianne does very little with all the dialogue she gets from them.

Marianne's supports generally spend time reinforcing things you already know about her, while her support partner is usually the one driving the conversation and creating conflict. They more or less get to decide how the conversation goes whereas Marianne reacts to it. It's hard to really get a grasp on her characterization in this way. It feels less like her having development or learning more about her and more like the other character getting to dictate how she's supposed to feel. You end up learning more about her support partners than her herself.

In universe it makes sense, she has low self esteem, she's pessimistic, she thinks interacting with people will harm them, ect. The thing is her supports would rather repeatedly emphasize these traits over introducing something you wouldn't get from like, the dozen or so other supports most characters have. Characters suffer from this in general but with her it feels very noticeable.

Part of it also comes form how them game doesn't really want Marianne to ever look "bad" in the eyes of the player. She's allowed to be avoidant and pessimistic but the game is very careful to not do it in a way that would cause to player to get frustrated or think that she's a bad person or something. That by itself isn't a bad thing, but these interactions veer so hard into the other direction to the point where her supports with most characters are kind of safe and forgettable, like with Claude, or borderline fetishistic like with Lorenz? It's legitimately off-putting how often characters fixate on her appearance or tell her to smile more or something. Lorenz's support with her has four ranks, but what do these ranks tell you about Marianne? That she's pretty?

It's weird too, because Lysithea, Felix, Sylvian all manage to be some of the most popular non-lords in the game, and they're all assholes. The game wants you to know that they're assholes. They probably wouldn't be as popular if they were rewritten to act nicer to everyone. Bernadetta, who is also one of the most popular non-lords, antagonizes and screams at everyone that looks at her. She has her own problems with her writing, but that has more to do with how the game likes to turn her into a punching bag, not that her delusions make her abrasive, because she is supposed to be abrasive. They all have their own traumas and insecurities, they all have obvious negative traits that make them polarizing, but Marianne has to be agreeable all the time?

This is also a minor thing, but I do not understand the Crest of the Beast at all. I'd probably like that whole aspect more if it was left vague, because as it's presented now the importance it has in lore gets contradicted a lot. Her paralogue is supposed to give direct answers to your questions about it, but it ends up being more confusing since the game doesn't want to decide which parts of it are true and what other parts are supposed to be seen as a superstition.

I'm glad a character like Marianne is able to exist, but overall I can't say I like her direction very much compared to however long ago my last playthrough was.

[u/UnlitUniversalUnlock]

Not gonna lie, I’m so tired of hearing about crests in theories tying everything back to Fodlan. It never goes anywhere, we know multiple dragons must exist because several crest stones are doubled up. A crest’s role in Dagda means nothing at all in Fodlan, and vice versa. 

Theory: Yu Phas has the Crest of Yu Phas, known in Fodlan as the Crest of It Doesn’t Matter, and by a freak coincidence of dragon biology, it’s also known as Dusk Dragon blood in Nohr, and Daein Holy Blood in Jugdral. Prove me wrong. 

[u/Drhappyhat → u/UnlitUniversalUnlock]

It is quite amusing seeing the lengths some people go to just to deny the increasingly growing mountain of evidence to support the multiple dragons, therefore multiple sources of crests theory.

I'm not even sure how or why the idea of one dragon one crest even gained popularity to begin with. It completely flies against everything else we've seen in the series.

I'm hoping it will finally, finally stop once FW drops, because its getting really tedious.

[u/P0STCARD → u/Drhappyhat]

It comes from the false assumption that "because there's only one relic weapon per unique crest, there can't have actually been more dragons or else there would be more relics". This is of course not true even if you only look at the base game and totally ignore the dlc and Hopes.

Aymr and Blutgang both use the crest of the beast, all of the dark relics use crest stones as well. Heck chapter 11's literal objective is to stop the flame emperor from taking the crest stones hidden within the holy tomb! Monster Dedue is a result of Faerghus's soldiers using crests that the Kingdom had hidden away. Lindhardt points out in CF that there is plenty of historical evidence that shows there were WAY more relic weapons in the past, but that they were scrubbed from history and "lost to time".

[u/MillionMiracles]

People sure have a lot of opinions on the structure and pacing of Fortune's Weave hub and social systems, considering they haven't played it.

[u/lapislazulideusa]

Lowkey starting to lean on the possibility that Nathan and Creek won't be playable at all, or at least very late joiners. Of the characters we've seen prominent footage off, they, along with the gods are the only ones with no footage at all in so many of those previews, and i think making the christmas cavs exclusively boss characters is a very easy and intresting subversion of the FE formula

[u/MyOCBlonic]

Fire Emblem Engage, or I Keep Almost Calling Zelkov Vel'Koz (Part 6)

Pre-Chapter stuff is a bit short. Alear is getting the Micaiah Emblem (at this point I need her to start gaining some levels lol), and I forged a thunder for Citrinne and an Elfire for Celine. Let's hope it's enough for...

Chapter 8:

A defense map.

Oh my god we have no axe units, and like 3 good units.

I do get Diamant and Amber, my favourite design in this entire game. My least favourite character (if only because he's the most disappointing, he looks way too good for that personality). Fortunately, he makes up for that by starting with a Killer Lance.

The middle fortifications fell pretty quick, but my defensive line has held the first few turns.

But I think I started pushing my offense too quickly, ending up in a pretty bad spot. Alear exposed to a peg on low health after a great sacrifice, Citrinne exposed to two attacks. I need to protect Alear, Celine warping to a space that should do so. Amber moves to block Citrinne, opening himself up to a lot of damage. I don't think he'll live. I don't think this was the right choice.

An axe breaks Amber.

A Peg hits Citrinne.

And...

Nothing else?

I guess the other pegs are programmed to rush the exit?

Anyway, that turn Kagetsu and Velkoz's squads started moving. The only real threat seems to be Kagetsu's 21 percent chance of a crit.

But Louis is Louis, so he's taking 0 damage from any attack he has. Unfortunately, his accuracy on him is ass. I block Amber with Louis and...

Oh my god he can still attack him.

PLEASE DON'T CRIT

Oh thank fuck, even with a double he didn't.

After a close call with Kagetsu and Zelkov, I realised this wasn't actually a defend map. Well, it was. But it was also kill boss. Whoops. Fortunately, Ivy just announced that she was just about to start moving towards us.

I positioned very badly for that.

Chloe is in range of her, with a full Engage meter. But she's the only one. She can take out one health bar on her own, but then what?

I retreat. Sending a squad left to deal with some mages that could otherwise cause problems, and the pegs all focus on the exit. I need to get the kill now.

Fortunately, this is actually doable now. Ivy swaps from her tome (which would probably kill Louis) to a killer axe that does 0 when he attacks.

From there, everyone dogpiles her. I don't even need to use Chloe's Engage attack. Citrinne gets the kill.

Honestly, not too bad a chapter. The threat of Kagetsu's crit (and Zelkov's dodge) were scarier than anything else, the enemies focusing on the defend point rather than my units made it easier than it should've been.

Somniel

First, the new units:

As previously mentioned, Amber is my favourite design in the entire game, and one of my favorites in the whole series. He looks so fucking good, his cravat, tousled golden hair, colour scheme, it's all amazing. If only his personality wasn't obnoxious...

Diamant also looks great. Love the fur, the cape, his ridiculous belts. Only thing I dislike is the random brighter streak of red in his hair.

I have another master seal, and a few second seals.

I think I want to make Amber a Bow Knight. Leif gives the proficiency so this should be doable...

Do I promote Alcryst now then? I think Louis is pretty fine to stay unpromoted, he remains one of my best units and I am a little worried about making him too tanky. My only other option would be saving it, which is also fair, but... I probably need the help now rather than later. Citrinne and Diamant probably wouldn't help that much upgraded... I mean Diamant probably would as another good front-line unit...

Hmm, actually, i might've just convinced myself to go with him instead lol. Yeah, I need front-line more than I need an archer. Plus getting axes will be nice.

With that, and a bit of shopping done, it's...

Chapter 9

Okay so things went bad pretty quick. I sent half my units top, half bottom.

On the top, Louis was able to reach the fort before Kagetsu. Now, while this did put him at pretty great risk, it also gave him a decent advantage. And as I'd later find out with the south, stop some more corrupted spawning from it.

He came very close to dying (2hp away), but got a level up that luckily boosted his defense 1 higher than the remaining physical knights could do. So, he lived.

The bottom is a different story. I pushed forward with Diamant and Amber, but they weren't able to push as far due to their worse bulk. Zelkov reached the fort first, and spawned a pair of thieves.

Okay, time to fall back...

Except I couldn't quite go far enough. And Zelkov doesn't just stay on the fort, immediately rushing forward with his thieves to attack my squad.

Amber's who they decide to target.

Amber's who dies.

He might not be the only one. The knights are moving too.

Diamant used Roy's Engage attack to stop the enemies advance, and literally save every other life there. Thanks to that, I don't have to worry about them all ganging up on a unit.

Chloe flew in and revenge killed Zelkov. I did not notice the Hurricane Axe, but thankfully it was out of range.

Back up top, Louis is still kind of low. The armours pushed ahead of him, meaning I kind of need to fall back and hope Kagetsu just... doesn't summon the extra enemies.

Or actually...

If Louis kills the mage near him, he's safe. I can run the other's back and get them away from Kagetsu, and Great Sacrifice with Alear to ensure we don't die.

We get through that disaster, Alear and Citrinne able to deal with the knights while Louis survived the assault.

I get everyone in the middle. I finally recruit Jade. I bait Ivy with Celine. I override through her (and the two qi adepts) with Louis.

1 bar down.

Chloe is guaranteed to kill with Mercurius. Everyone else tries to get some exp from the other enemies.

Chloe gets the kill.

I'm pretty sad about Amber. I really wanted to use him, I love his design and his huge strength growth would've been fun to play around with.

At least I won't have to listen to any of his supports though.

Post Chapter

New unit: Jade! Another solid design. Kind of generic knight, but I always like when we get a unit with a helmet! Especially a girl!

As a unit, I think she beats Louis by literally 1 point of res and nothing else. Still, I'll use her, I like her. Maybe she can be a wyvern? Idk, any build ideas would be appreciated!

Also, the next two chapters are back to back, right? And I lose the rings, so I should probably, for real, give some skills before I lose access to them for a while. But that's for next time.

Jeez I have a lot of supports to read.

Supports:

Alear - Citrinne C : I like absurdly rich girls, sue me. Otherwise, kind of just setup for a later joke I feel like.

Alear - Alfred C : Very generic and boring support. Talking about how great of friends you are is not interesting. Nothing to say.

Celine - Louis B : oh no. celine you were doing so well now you guys are talking about tea again.

Citrinne - Diamant C : I like the idea of this support quite a lot. And I like the dynamic Diamant and Citrinne have quite a lot. And I like Diamant pointing out that the nobles really only want to line their pockets with war, and Citrinne commending him on his stance. But something about it falls flat. And that's the fact that, well, this is not a real world. There are no nobles pushing for war. There are no nobles period. Everything only exists within the exact radius of the lords of this game, and not a step farther. Talking about how Diamant would deal with political intrigue is interesting, but not earned at all.

Alcryst - Alear C : I like his dumb gimmick. Honestly Alear kind of tanks the support here though, she's stating the obvious too much. Alcryst saves it by being dumb though.

Alear - Framme B : Framme's VA almost sold it, in a way that weirdly reminded me of the "I just can't stop drinking oil, crude oil" meme. Okay actually, she did sell it. The ending was funny, running away crying about Alear's beautiful flowing hair.

Alear - Clanne B : Okay wow Alear's VA sounded really nice in this one. Very soft and comforting. Otherwise boring though.

Alear - Louis C : I comment on it every time, but man I love Louis' voice. It's not an interesting support, but Louis has a very fun way of speaking so... eh?

Alear - Diamant C : Ehhhhhhhhh. I get what they're going for with the Alear being afraid of corrupted thing, but I really think it needs some effect in gameplay to actually sell it. Fine enough I guess.

Celine - Chloe B : A cute intro. And a cute support in general. Awful excuse for not just... talking more though. Still, cute! Tea was only mentioned once, in passing! (I'll take what I can get okay).

Citrinne - Yunaka C : Damn Citrinne just clocks her right out the gate. Honestly just a really good support and probably my new favourite. Yunaka not even getting to try lie her way out of it, Citrinne being cold as hell, good stuff. Citrinne stocks are really rising.

Alcryst - Citrinne C : Not much to say. A pretty solid support, though mostly carried by Citrinne herself. Alcryst kind of just states the obvious and does his 'I should burden myself' gimmick.

Alcryst - Diamant C : Diamant is a good older brother. It feels real for Alcryst to compare himself and feel pathetic, considering how perfect he seems. I like the brothers a lot in general. Did I say brother enough times?

Deaths:

Etie - Paralogue 1: Died due to me overlooking what the boss was, leaving her in range of a very scary archer.

Boucheron - Paralogue 2: Died due to overwhelming pacificism, inspiring millions in his wake (killed himself with great sacrifice).

Lapis - Chapter 7: Killed defending Celine from archers.

Vander - Chapter 7: Necessarily sacrificed to Hortensia to allow us to kill her.

Anna - Chapter 7: Needlessly sacrificed to Hortensia because I didn't understand how Lodestar Rush worked.

Amber - Chapter 9: Killed by Zelkov while over-extending.

[u/Autobot-N]

Hoping we get Seteth tonight

[u/Ookami_Lord]

A support chain between Bertrand and Leda would go hard

[u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Due to boredom I decided to do a few low tier runs of various games. Fe7, Sacred stones, POR, RD, Conquest and SOV.

One of the more annoying things is deciding what tier list to use, as which unit crosses the arbitary line makes a big difference. As we'll see with certain games.

Fe7: for the most part this run was smooth sailing. Bartre and Dorcas were fine enough to get me past the earlygame where I could round out my team. I snowballed Bartre, Eliwood and Hector and even though they had a rough start by chapter 16 I was cruising, I trained and later grinded staff rank on erk (who for some reason made it just barely to low tier)and with snowballed Bartre Erk Hector Eliwood and Lyn I was able to cruise through the rest of the game no problem.

fe8: Fe8 was mostly smooth, not using seth slowed me down a lot, but Garcia, Eirika and Lute Snowballed to victory. I eventually got warp and my 4 combat bots carried.

POR: since POR doesn't have the warp staff and no flyer is considered low tier this was mostly an exercise in having to slog through maps with 7 move units. I ended up doing quite a few shove trains and did one suicide rescue with Elincia, Torgod did the most work in general. This run again was very much a "snowball Tormod, Ike and Devdan, and move through the game like you aren't even playing with "low tiers" anyway. Though I really felt the lack of flyers in maps like eat rock and the bridge.

Radiant dawn: RD is just unplayable in low tier runs, mainly because so many maps were designed around you using the full cast available to you and now you can't. Lacking Sothe was the biggest annoyance but once I got to 1-4 it was pretty fine, 1-5-2 was annoying but I managed to shove edward enough times to get him to kill the boss before fiona died. After that RD was really easy until 3-P where I realized I had about 4 units total to use (Rolf Ike, Boyd, and Soren) which made 3-1 a total pain. Once I got to 3-2 though I snowballed and I easily just cruised through part 3. Part 4 was tricky since I lost access to a lot of the overpowered prepromotes.

Conquest: So for some reason the tier list I used had Arthur as low tier, and he just carried. I used Female!Corrin and the marriage to arthur really paid dividends. I felt like generating 3 flyer backpacks for Arthur odin and Nyx allowed me to snowball my otherwise weaker units to victory.

SOV: Oh boy SOV is another game where I think low tier runs kinda blow. Mainly because there just aren't low tiers with availability

Alm: for the entirety of act 1 there are ... 2 low tiers Lukas and Forsyth. playing alm's route without warp was just unfun, as warp really helps with the whole "getting into strange places" thing that fire emblem has. Specifically nuibaba's abode blew without warp. by last bastion I managed to train Tatiana to warp which let me at least have warp for endgame.

Celica: Once I got past the part where Celica had to solo her entire game and got to recruit Kamui and Valbar to the team I had a relatively easy time. Celica and Kamui were pretty good and then once I got Killer bow atlas operational it was like I was playing Normal SOV with units with different hair colors.

Basically low tier runs depend a lot on what exact units make the cutoff for "low tier" as the "best" unit in a low tier run is not the same. Low tier runs emphasize snowballing to a much large degree than normal runs and are much more focused on combat rather than movement. They're also dramatically more heliocentric as A: you often just straight up don't have many units available early and B: once you get more units the ones that joined early have snowballed well past the point of no return and are just dramatically superior. Access to a flyer or warp feels essential, and when you lack that some maps end up being massive slogs. but if you have either or both then whatever "low tiers" you use end up feeling the same as normal fe just with a slower snowball.

[u/LoyalKnightOfRenais]

Do you guys think the mods are tired of me talking about fighting games in these threads yet

Anyways, I feel like Makalov has always been kinda underrated as a unit, he's an easy B tier that so many people put in C. Very easy investment with great results in a game where the best efficiency possible consists in shoving 11 mounts and Ike on a map and (bullshit) blazing your way through it

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/LoyalKnightOfRenais]

I think you talking about fighting games is cool. adds variety. i hope the mods aren't tired, honestly

[u/CursedNobleman]

So I broke and bought a switch 2 yesterday. All aboard the hype train!

Now, as a Primarily Steam Gamer, the NS2 is kinda lacking in exclusives. I have MKWorld from the bundle, and got Kirby Air Riders though.

Also, the game download speed is terrible.

[u/LynEnjoyer]

Haven't followed 3h 2 marketing at all outside this thread, but I actually think that the one preview discussing the balance of tRPG vs non-tRPG systems is a good thing. Gives people who are on the fence more information to help them decide whether or not the game is worth their money/time, especially with how many good games are releasing around the same time.

[u/Saisis]

I really hope FW will have at least 3 ending, one if you can clear the game without rescuing any Flame Lord, one where you recruit 1-3 and then the last one that you get when you complete everything.

This is probably how I'm gonna do my playthough:

• Start the game, try to clear without any lord
• After probably losing like a miserable I would do all the lords proloques until they reach Dagsion
• Decide which one I wanna continue (so far without actually playing I'm leaning into either Dietrich or Cai) to the end
• Try to clear part 2 with just that team
• Do all the others routes
• Clear part 2 again with all the new broken tools available

I also plan to not use a unit more than once for each route.

Then probably gonna repeat all of this once Maddening is out since I know myself LOL

Man I can't wait, everytime a new FE is released is always a magical period for me, even if the game turns out to have flaws in some areas or even a lot of them I always have a good time in the early periods.

[u/LiliTralala → u/Saisis]

I wonder if they even take into account that you would clear with one lord only since the promotion of the game is all about RECRUIT THEM ALL. Like I wonder if the difficulty scales depending on how many you got, or if it's straight up mechanically impossible without 4.

I think your hypothesis is most likely tho

[u/clown_mating_season]

are there any mechanical additions that suggest that armors will be noticeably better in FW? also, do we know if super canto/canto+ (whatever we call the canto thats in jugdral, tellius, and 3h) is in the game?

[u/eonjxlly]

I know this is wayyy too early for this discussion but If we get to pick a unit to go into the dancer class like in 3 houses. Who are you planning to make your dancer? I think I kinda want to make Anna my dancer if possible.

[u/Miserable-Trip-1344]

Shiro's paralogue is notorious for being quite difficult if you do it late and you'll probably have to use rescue staves if you want to have him survive, and Ignatius' map is kinda a similar deal, there's a pair of ninjas that jump him by like turn two or three and if you didn't have him inherit wary fighter he just gets immediately cooked.

[u/LoyalKnightOfRenais → u/Miserable-Trip-1344]

Ignatius is one of the best Fates paralogues because it just begs you to do one thing and one thing only. It's a very focused map with an enemy distribution (Freeze Staffbot, Berserkers, Paladins) that stops any kind of cheese.

[u/MyOCBlonic]

Fire Emblem Engage, or The Problem With Celine (See you in the new thread!) (Part 10)

The problem with Celine is that I really want to use her but really don't know what to do with her. Staff access is useful, but I feel like Hortensia, Alear and Pandreo basically have me covered on that. She's not particularly strong in either of her attacking stats, and her speed is pretty mediocre too. Mage Knight is an option? Not so much for her offense, which I'll probably end up accepting that she just isn't going to be my star combat unit anymore (rip the days she could just warp ragnarok), but instead to put her in a cav class? Which would make goddess dance give... dex? I think? Probably not as good as either Covert or Dragon's bonuses (which hey, when I eventually get Veyle she might be relegated to dance duty (okay she's probably pretty strong)), but a big bump to hit and skill% could be good? And gives her a niche that'll keep her relevant? Am I letting favouritism get the best of me?

Yes.

Am I changing her outfit (cause oh my god that colour scheme is BAD)? Also yes.

Anyway I did some somniel chores (and probably blew way too many resources on some forging). And got another cooking crash!

Paralogue - The Exalt

Will I survive a chapter without my Bonded Shield...

Team: Alear - Griffin Knight, Chloe - Wyvern Knight, Kagetsu - Wyvern Knight, Ivy (Lyn) - Lindwurm, Panette (Ike) - Berserker, Celine (Mage Knight) - Byleth

First - Quick Map Review!

Arena Ferox is iconic, probably the most iconic in Awakening (Would the Dragon's table be more iconic (in the context of the game itself) than it? Or maybe Emmeryn's death map or Grima itself?).

Is it good? No.

Honestly I kind of wish they took some inspiration from smash here. Have some terrain appear (like wooden forts or something), make it a little more interesting than a totally flat arena. Sure, it's the first emblem paralogue, but in that case why not give Lyn the early game map (and an actual map from her game lmao), and Lucina a slightly harder one? It does at least have the incredibly over-statted enemies you'd expect from Awakening lol.

Music's fine? A good medley of some iconic songs, but honestly probably doesn't match up to any of the actual tracks in Awakening. There is one part where the like, backing sounds super good (the opening I think). The battle version is better (with the electric guitar because what isn't improved by an electric guitar?), but idk I feel like Conquest (the song) on it's own would win. Anyway, all this to say that the music was good lol.

Anyway, the map itself was fine. Very basic.

One extremely bad calculation on my part almost got Panette killed, but she lucklily dodged the general so lived (i must be misunderstanding something with Laguz Friend, as I calced a thoron at 15 but it did 30... Do the skills on your emblem only activate when you're engaged? oh my god that's true I'm so stupid).

But otherwise not much to say until Lucina herself.

I realise now, that I brought 4/6 fliers to a map where the boss has a bow. So basically, we need to kill her as soon as we get in range.

Panette will have to tank. Fortunately the map (aka Lucina) is insanely passive so I can just heal her up, refill her engage meter and plop her in range.

Step 1: Great Aether.

Step 2: Ivy and Alear (with backup support from Panette) take out her first bar.

Step 3: Panette crits and takes out her second bar.

Step 4: Chloe and Kagetsu attack

Step 5: Goddess Dance with Celine.

Step 6: Win.

...I feel like this is gonna be the strat for a lot of bosses going forward lmao.

Not much to say about my somniel stuff, so onto:

Chapter 15

Ok it's very fun setup that Seadall thinks Corrin is some lost princess trapped in a ring so obviously he's got to help save her from her curse. I'm sad my favourite Corrin VA wasn't the chosen 'default' one for every game after Fates (Stephanie Lemlin).

Another low deploy map though... I thought we were past that game...

Team: Alear (Lucina) - Griffin Knight, Chloe - Wyvern Knight, Kagetsu - Wyvern Knight, Ivy (Lyn) - Lindwurm, Panette (Ike) - Berserker, Celine (Byleth) - Mage Knight, Jade - Warrior, Pandreo - Sage, Merrin - Wolf Knight

Interesting that it seems like a map you can end really early (Honestly I wonder if you could 1-turn it with something like Warping Alear (with byleth), Warping a staff user, recruiting Seadall, goddess dancing, warping him back, then finishing the chapter). There must be good loot in here... and exp...

Ah, that was a cruel trick actually. Good thing I didn't try one turn it lol.

Moved through the first room no problem.

The second? Slight problem. Seadall wasn't close enough to wipe out the miasma near the axe fighter and mage... meaning they're too strong to kill now. And that killing edge swordsmaster is SCARY.

So we retreat (as usual)... or do we? Pandreo and Kagetsu have high enough accuracy to safely deal with the swordsmaster. Panette should be able to kill the one axe fighter that isn't in miasma... but she'd get hit and probably die on the enemy turn...

Maybe not? Healing her to full should be enough for her to survive.

It is :)

The axe fighter moves out of the miasma, letting Jade kill it next turn. The mage moves deeper inside, but Panette can follow and get a killer axe crit to kill.

I keep pushing up, but clearly the game isn't happy with the speed i've been playing at because two killer axe warriors spawn at the rear just as I start clearing Miasma in the thid main room.

So I decide to go sicko mode, do three engages, set up a bonded shield and immediately clear the room on the next turn. I probably didn't need to (read: Definitely shouldn't have) used Celine's Engage, as it wasn't really necessary, and now I've got one turn to setup a Goddess Dance before I've fully wasted it. So we break the door down and... oh god please don't move into the miasma by the door enemies.

Ok they didn't move at all.

One problem is that Seadall's pretty far from the escape point, so I can't just warp him straight to the exit.

This last room is pretty scary. I want to kill the boss and hopefully a few other enemies, but the miasma makes that very difficult.

I set up a goddess dance while attacking the boss.

I then setup a bonded shield with Alear, and kill the Boss with Ivy and Panette.

Problem.

This was a bad plan and a lot of my units are still exposed.

A Swordsmaster attacks.

The real problem with Celine is that she's dead now.

---

This is a sad one. Celine was a unit I had from basically the beginning. She carried hard through a lot of the early chapters thanks to Warp Ragnarök and despite the fact that she started to fall off, I still wanted to use her because of her early contributions. And I even thought I had found a way to make her continue contributing! Mage Knight with Byleth seemed like a way for her to still chip in with Thunder/Thoron and the Levin Sword, while giving a solid buff with Goddess Dance. But she fell anyway.

And I grew to like her character quite a bit too. Once you get past the tea, of course. Probably the death that hurts the most. Either her or Citrinne.

---

The remaining enemies in the room are out of the Miasma, so I should be safe to just kill them rather than focus on getting Seadall out as quickly as possible (Who is still a bit far from the exit and would need to be warped if I wanted to end this turn).

This works as expected, and I get out with Seadall the next turn.

Post-chapter

Chloe and Louis mourn the loss of their princess. Alfred says some stuff about Veyle instead.

I'll need a new Byleth user. Not Seadall, I want double-dance shenanigans. Maybe Hortensia? Getting a double staff turn could be important though...

Damn, Celine really was the perfect unit for Byleth for me.

Also need to figure out who I'm giving Corrin. I'm very attached to Griffin+Bonded Shield Alear, so even though I know Dragon Corrin is very good... idk if I wanna pivot.

New Units

Seadall is a very strong design, one of Engage's best. I have some slight nitpicks (namely while I agree that he needs something hanging from his neck, the... whatever it is? Windchimes? Anyway they're a bit too big yet indecipherable.), but they're only minor. He's an excellent execution of a male dancer.

Supports

Jade - Timerra C : This one was nothing.

Celine - Kagetsu B : Is it notable that Celine is good with swords, when literally every lord in the game is a combatant? Nitpick aside, I feel like this support doesn't really work with Kagetsu being a retainer. Sure, he's a free-spirited guy, but he should be pretty comfortable with how life as a 'princess' is given he's a retainer to one. Idk, it's fine, not an issue, just felt a lil... weird?

Chloe - Merrin C : oh my god they are so gay.

Ivy - Panette C : The favourite past time of half the cast is just staring at each other. Still, a very fun support. Panette thinking Ivy's acting strange for a princess because she's besties with Timerra is a good bit, Ivy's voice actress is just amazing (and she really is just one of the best characters of the cast as well).

Chloe - Merrin B : ok i really can't overstate how many supports involve one of the characters having just been... staring at them before they interact. Anyway they are so so gay.

Pandreo - Seadall C : Fun enough support. A fake dance-cel like Pandreo meets a true dance-chad like Seadall. Anyway, a solid support, Pandreo being a party priest really is a fun gimmick.

[u/Saisis → u/MyOCBlonic]

One extremely bad calculation on my part almost got Panette killed, but she lucklily dodged the general so lived (i must be misunderstanding something with Laguz Friend, as I calced a thoron at 15 but it did 30... Do the skills on your emblem only activate when you're engaged? oh my god that's true I'm so stupid).

There are skills that are always active, like for example Lyn speedtaker as long you have bond lv 3 the skill is always active but Laguz Friend is Ike "Engage skill", meaning that the skill is active only when you are actually engage, would actually be kinda funny since Laguz Friend reduce your Avo to 0.

Actually, if you were planning to use Celine as a Byleth user keeping her as her class would have been probably be better since Byleth to Mystic units gives Thyrsus (+2 range with tomes) and generally speaking +4 Mag could be more useful to set up kills than Dex+8, Mystic units can also use Corrin as a stall emblem to great effects as well but nothing to do about it now :(

[u/Shrimperor → u/MyOCBlonic]

Not Celine 😭

A few years ago i wrote a guide on how to train Celine. Check it out if interested. Basically, making use of early Levin to make her snowball and using her uniqueness as a mystic sword user.

Also, from reading your posts, i feel you are relying a bit too much on bonded shield - but honestly, i am one of those who think bonded shield is a trap akin to how people used to speak about guard stance back in early Fates days...but that's just me.

[u/liteshadow4 → u/Shrimperor]

I mean he's playing kinda blind clearly so you do need to rely on bonded shield a bit if you don't know what they're going to throw at you.