blogger

Can this be done without using the DLC promotion items? I'm on C10 with Effie in her base class, Cav!MU, and Archer!Mozu, and I just can't seem to be in enough places at the same time to keep the enemy count down.

BEXP doesn't really balance out weaker units, because you can use those same resources to make a good unit even better, and FE being an RPG-ish game, emphasizes god units. The concept of BEXP is neat though, because it removes the incentive to waste turns killing reinforcements or healing scratches for more EXP. The real problem was the implementation, since it was possible to achieve most map objectives without losing any potential BEXP. IMO, they should have reduced the amount of combat EXP given in FE9/10 and given more BEXP, the amount of which begins decreasing from turn 1.

The thing is, the higher attack power of enemies in FE11 doesn't really result in deeper/more intricate/etc. plans. The main effect is that a casual player switches from "send Marcus to kill everything" to "have Jeigan (and then Zagaro) sit on a chokepoint." Once you go for LTC, I'm not sure that warping Shiida on top of the enemy castle is more complex than strategies in other games. Back to the subject of save states: I didn't know that suspend/reset could be used to advance the RNG state. That changes my opinion of it in post-GBA a little bit, but an effective strategy should hopefully not need constant RNG manipulation, so the two battle saves in FE11 chapters makes the effect about even. On the other hand, I don't recall FE10 featuring battle saves in HM, so that's a different beast altogether. On the topic of luck vs planning: In principle, accounting for luck is part of having a good plan. However, being an RPG-like game, FE makes this difficult because of your limited number of units. Since you only have around 10 deployed units, and often fewer good units in a fast run, you can't afford to account for all scenarios. The result is that assuming you always get the best RNG roll becomes an essential part of many LTC strategies...

It's funny that you mention that, since FE11 is one of the newer games where save states don't help much, as the battle RNG is not connected to the pathfinding algorithm. Then again, through use of battle save and plain old resets, the player can achieve the same effect. This is why I don't understand save state criticism, since their only effect is to save time.By the way: H5 is only hard because of the poorly designed C1-3 bosses (wtf @ Gazzack and Hyman).

On the topic of green units, is it actually possible to save all the Marado civilians in FE10 1-6-2? It's trivial like death in Mario in that the only real effect on players is that they play the level again. Even if you discount save states, most players reset if any unit dies. You could say that your units being non-respawning unlike RTS type games (Starcraft, etc.) makes you care about them more, but that's really because of the RPG elements in FE (growth, backstory, etc.). Imagine if you had a game like Starcraft except that you started with a fixed pool of units instead of creating them. Death would be "permament" in that each lost unit reduces your fighting ability, but it wouldn't make it any more emotional. It's in this sense that permanent death's real effect is only on the map objective, since nobody dies in practice. I don't recall Minerva having much to say about the Medon campaign other than "someone needs to beat them because they lost their way." FE8 is another example where the enemy is generally depicted as some faceless evil, but with individual charismatic (Selena and that guy I forget) enemies portrayed as sympathetic. This is in the same line as Camus, which I mentioned before, and there is usually one sympathetic boss in each game. FE10 is the closest the series has gotten to the reality of war since the player controls both the GMs and the DBs. However, the game even tells you not to worry about the details since the other side comes back to life! This has the effect of devolving the experience to "I can 2-turn this chapter if Jill beats up Ike." Ironically, permanent death would actually have made this more interesting, since you would need to balance turns saved against the value of units lost.

I must have zoned out or something, since I didn't remember any generics talking in FE7. On the other hand, the faceless units call Jill a traitor at some point in FE9, which I found to be a neat touch. I elaborated on it in a previous post, but IMO, the enemies having the occasional pre-battle or death quote would go a long way in humanizing them.

FE10 Ike is pretty much fetish-fuel with his muscles-on-top-of-muscles.

I didn't see this brought up, but I found the character art quite odd in places. Marth's face looks like it's been hit with a sledgehammer for example. As far as poor map design goes, I found the bosses in chapters 1-3 much more annoying than the ballista chapter. When I tried H5, Hyman (C3) doubled and killed every one of my units!

I'll admit to not having read the entire thread, but in principle save states don't affect the outcome of GBA FE, since there is no execution aspect to it (other than the dual-occupancy glitch I think). Someone did mention that the GBA RNG is entirely deterministic (predictable seed), but even without this knowledge it's possible to pseudo-save-state on an actual system. Since the game doesn't autosave when burning RNs through the path-finding method, you can preview and determine whether the upcoming RNs are greater or less than 50%. Even on FE iterations where the RNG is well-seeded, there are ways to manipulate outcomes, either through battle save or just plain brute-force resetting.

I'm working my way backwards. After I get to FE6, I'll tackle the SNES games. Not sure I'll bother with FE1/2/3 though, since I think those have remakes. Dunno, I like Syrene better. I think it's in the hair. Vanessa is definitely a very useful unit though (like Seth beta version). For the most part, I agree with you. When it comes down to it, you need to kill units that are in the way. I don't think all the Ilians (sp?) are mercenaries though, given that you need to invade their country at some point in FE6. I'd have to review the game literature to be sure of this though. It's funny that you bring up mercenaries, because the Mercenary is the only male sprite that isn't either faceless or comical (pirates and bandits, even fighters to a degree). Although, the mercenary sprite is curiously designed with the aggressive/confident/taunting pose that makes him look like a bad guy.

You should check out my other thread. Florina's pretty vicious indeed, but it's too bad the sexist CON + female STR cap make her endgame dodgy.

I haven't actually gone through FE6 yet! I do see that an updated translation patch is out, so it's next on my list. It doesn't really matter in-game because like Ebert said, games don't have characters or plots. The funny thing that Rehab kind of mentioned is that the female units (Troubadour, Peg. Knight) are generally less faceless than the male units (Paladin, Knight, Soldier). Death is trivial in terms of game mechanics, since you just load your last save state and keep going. If anything, IS could have made the whole "war is bad" thing more serious by giving generic enemies death quotes and the bosses battle conversations other than "behold my peerless skillz." That said, there's no indication that IS actually wants you to think that war is bad. In fact, for the most part, your forces' slaughter of entire armies is generally shown in a positive, role-model-setting light. Only occasionally certain charismatic enemies (e.g. FE1/FE11 Camus) are highlighted. I never said otherwise. I mention this because, as I pointed out earlier, some posters seem to think I'm preaching to them or such. As a number of folks pointed out, the game gives you little reason to care about any of the enemies. So the Peg. Knights being little girls and their not-so-faceless sprite makes you think about it for just a moment. Not much longer, since again, you have to kill most enemies in your way or else you'll lose turns.

This is more or less what I was getting at. Besides, games don't have plots or characters [citation: Roger Ebert]. This is an example of someone taking the thread too seriously. Also, healers are way worse since they're not cute and they use those sinister Berserk staves. For what it's worth, if your own units are any guide, the Peg. Knights are like 10. Blame IS for not adding male child soldiers. The only unit that can kill those swamp dudes is the Dracoknight who shouldn't even spawn if you do the chapter right. Now that elderly Marado lady in C1-6-2 on the other hand... The main thing stopping them from being serious enemies is the low defense. Since the enemy should basically never hit your units in most of the FE games, the only thing that affects their difficulty is how many rounds you need to kill them.

It sometimes makes sense, but usually for reasons other than the chair being taken, and usually only if the enemy is the one seizing. For example, in FE9, you need to prevent enemies from taking over your base (C5) or killing Sanaki (C13). For the player, it makes more sense for the victory condition to be based on sufficient enemies defeated (seizing throne) or enough units arriving at a tile (seizing gate).

It's more of a gameplay issue than a moral one, but rout chapters always seemed like they'd be more fun if the enemy surrendered after some kind of condition, like if they were badly outnumbered or divided or something. Likewise, seize maps never made any sense to me. Does everyone just decide to give up once Hector puts his lvl 1 butt down on a chair?