JimmyBeans

I think speedyhawk did an iron man with some of his friends where they each drafted units. You could try something like that, a coop draft ironman.

I'm a fraud

The Hammer Man for sure must stay, and we cannot get rid of the other axe bro's either. Chapter 2 gives you 4 axe users on the same map, what other FE does that?

The contrast to Camus and Lorenz you pointed out is more of a credit to their character rather than Caeda's charisma, even though she is good at what she does. Lorenz, while not nearly as renowned as Camus, has had a way longer career and service to Grust, yet he is willing to throw it all a way for the best of his kingdom. Camus straight up admits to Nyna that he doesn't want to throw away his life's work as a knight, he is a good guy in a sense, but his pride gets the better of him even though he knows what the right choice is. I am glad you pointed that out though, not many people realize the contrasting perspectives on knighthood these two display in the same chapter, it actually makes Lorenz out to be really cool.

Each one has a niche, whether intended or not, that makes them an interesting pick up under certain circumstances in my opinion. Athena has the speed necessary to double all the chapter 9 pirates on H5, hitting that benchmark exactly. Horace has great bases despite his terrible growths and B rank lances at base, his base defense can make him extremely useful even on H5, but nobody really talks about it as Wolf and Sedgar exist. Etzel is slow, but has really high base magic, allowing him to do some really high damage. And Ymir is like the physical version of Etzel. These levels are easier (except Etzel's can screw you if you are not careful) than main line levels and give you unique items along side your new characters, to which Athena is really the only "growth" unit out of them, while the others all have a special stat that is higher than all their peers. Horace has 18 defense base! and like I said, Ymir and Etzel have bery high base STR/MAG for the contexts of the game.

I wonder if he was introduced in the manual of the original game, I'm guessing a lot of story elements are introduced there in FE1. At least he gets an introduction in the prologue for the remake. While his scenes are few, I think he serves more as the "lore guy" as he explains to Marth the deal with dragons and some of the history that has already transpired, and funnily he looks less useful in FE11 because they made Marth more competent and basically had Malledus tell him things he already knows. His expansion is nice in said remake, but they seemingly put a lot more into Nyna's scenes than him, and so he is still a lot more forgettable sadly. Rather than the player character, he seems to serve as a prototype for Kaga's love for the older tactician assisting the prince, maybe he was a last minute replacement for Jagen's role in book 1? I remember there was that old dev note saying that Jagen was meant to die at a certain point so Marth could "come of age", as he was supposed to be his advisor. If that is true, looks like Kaga went with his original idea in, without the scripted death at least, for book 2.

Funnily enough, I think most complaints I hear about maniac mode have to do with something that isn't tied to the difficulty, which is the speed of the game. I still need to try maniac mode, but maybe ill do it with animations off and at 150% speed to make sure that those biases don't creep in. I think I can find enjoyment in it, but we will see. I'll give it a shot. Fun write up!

I do miss weapon rank bonuses and other things that you mentioned. Because looking back, I think what Vander really needed was for his S rank axes to do literally anything for him to set him apart in a way. Also, it is weird to see paladins be a mono-weapon class in this game.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about that stuff as you will almost never find a character that isn't criticized. Especially from a game so popular as 3H, there is not a single character in that game that is not hated by some people. The only characters that can kind of escape it are ones from incredibly obscure games. In short, I understand if you are curious as to why, but you are not going to get a clear answer as it will vary drastically from person to person.

I absolutely adore Shadows of Valentia, and while I think it does get a lot of flak for story decisions, it scratches an itch that I have wanted for FE for a long time.

Me and a friend talked about how funny it would be there was an evil ring to summon a villain from every game, and we joked about what an outrage people would have if Edelgard was on the villains side as the 3H rep. Could you imagine that? It honestly would be cool imo, but people would be so mad about that haha.

What a Legendary album, I've listened to it extensively! I've been currently listening to Discovery a bunch lately though, I'd recommend that one as well.

Sounds like fun! I've never tried an iron man of this game and only played through it once. let us know how it goes because I might try that in the future.

It's definitely not always the case, but most 30 year-olds I assume would be married, or cohabitating, and possibly have a family and a career. That's why the way he worded it doesn't bother me at all. With the responsibilities opened up at that time, I think the word appropriate fits fine, but it seems that's not the same for you and I don't know what to say about that. Maybe that was his concern, but his response to me didn't seem that what your saying is the case. But, me and you guessing what he meant is a waste of time, we both took something different away from it.