Stones

Actually it was first introduced in Gaiden, but there were only 2 commands you could give. I disagree that there you will direct most of your units in the same direction, you may want to split the footlocked ones to send them further ahead in maps like Chapter 2 and Chapter 7. I actually think this is a good idea. Also move growth, also infantry exclusive. I guess it would kind of suck on enemies though.

I always liked the 5th one, I think it was because it was pretty dark and edgy and I liked the whole thing with Umbridge progressively gaining authority. Very YA now that I think about it, but I guess the reason I like this rather than most YA books is there was much less romance than they usually have. Nothing really wrong with that by itself but its not really my cup of tea, and they also tend to be really predictable, which is obviously boring. I also like how Prisoner of Azkaban did time travel, because it followed the Fixed-Timeline Theory, which is that the timeline is fixed and if you go back in time an "change" it, all you do is making it end up like how it is when you came from, if that makes sense. Like Sirius and the hippogriff never died, because Harry and Hermione went back in time to save them, or if you go back in time to when there were dinosaurs, but something goes wrong with your time machine and causes a big explosion which kills them all (so you are the "asteroid"). Or, you kill Hitler as a new-born, and replace him with another baby so his parents don't notice, but then Fake Hitler grows up an becomes Real Hitler. Harry and Hermione didn't change, they just made everything happen. It still has paradoxes though because they interact with each other in the past, which I'm not a fan of because they're a bit of a lazy way to not have to think about the order of events to have everything make sense. If Harry is surrounded by dementors, how the fuck does he survive to go back in time and save himself? He should have already died or become a soulless husk or whatever. Very lazy, but not as lazy as the Multiverse theory: yeah just go back in time and dick around, who cares because it just creates a new reality. Dynamic timelines are similar but there are actual stakes like in Back to the Future, where Marty has to make himself exist or prevent the Rich Biff timeline. However it just makes stupid rules, like where he turns invisible, like is there are timer or something going on? Why did he randomly turn invisible then? Why did his siblings disappear from the photo in age order? If the oldest doesn't exist, none of them will, they should all disappear at the same time, as soon as he screws up. Still good movies, but it annoys me. /rant

I completely disagree with all of this. To be honest I'm not quite sure what your issue even is with them. It isn't a terrible thing for enemies to require the player to actually think, whether that is because you have to manage when and where your units attack or that the enemy won't die to a single low-percent crit. Demonic beasts are strong, but they have weaknesses and so there are clear counterplays against them. People often complain about the series using stat inflation to increase difficulty (which I don't even have much of a problem with) but when we have a new and interesting way to make enemies require more tactical thinking from the player, it's described as unfair and lazy because it needs you to use your brain.

The argument is that Echoes was in the same situation with Gaiden's characters, but rather than adding a new character and doing very little with the old characters like New Mystery did, it developed it's existing characters instead.

I think it's a good thing. Let's assume that there's a group of people who are going to do different things. Each "thing" is good or bad, but no one KNOWS for sure whether they are doing something that is right or wrong, they can only decide based on their own opinions and morals and everything. There are 3 possible situations here. Number 1 is that everyone does things they believe is wrong, Number 2 is that some people do things they think is right and some people do things they think is wrong, and Number 3 is that everyone does things they believe is right. Obviously, 3 is the best situation we have. This is really just a convoluted way to say, they best thing we can hope for people is to do what they think is right. Even if what they do is actually wrong, surely that is better than them doing things they think is not right? If "everyone doing what they think is right" is a bad thing, then what is a good thing? The way the OP was phrased does make it seem like an excuse for a bad thing, but I don't think that was what was intended when it was written.

This is true but the ranking system is kinda garbo in FE7 because the game rewards you for doing stuff like hoarding stat boosters and punishes you for promoting Dart. It's not really good strategy and more following some abstract and arbitrary rules set by the game that don't reward the right sort of playing, in my opinion. At least they tried though, which is more than the majority of games have done.

That doesn't have very much to do with the actual avatars, it's more that they are important characters so cutscenes often feature them. Like Ike and Micaiah get cutscenes, but the only difference between theirs and Corrin/Byleth is that the second pair are avatars, there's no real difference between the actual animated cutscenes. Regarding the quality, that's really just a matter of opinion and again is not really related to the avatars, they just have them in it, if that makes sense. I very much disagree. Two of the examples I gave were of Ch 1 and Ch 7, both of which are pretty small battles, and very easy. Even Ch 10 isn't that important. You could argue that the praise is appropriate if you go quick and have Florina break the snag and everything, A) but you can go fast in Awakening and 3H, and B) you get the "you're so smart mark" regardless of whether you go fast or take the full 15 turns you need to get the gaiden. In late Lyn Mode the game also incentivises going slowly so you can level Nils up and get 19xx later on as well, and this is only on playthroughs where you're doing Hector Mode, AKA playthroughs in which you know how to play and probably want to finish LM in 1 or 2 sittings. I would rank avatars by how much they add to the game. Mark adds nothing so I don't like him very much. Even Kris, my next least favourite, adds new chapters, supports, and funny hats. I might elaborate on this tomorrow. (Now that I think about it Mark and Kris would be much better in the opposite games. It would be very novel to be able to have a unit whose class you can choose in FE7, but I guess in practice there would only be 2 or 3 practical options.)

What I meant was that I personally wouldn't consider them avatars, and therefore I personally don't consider Byleth an avatar. I can see that I was unclear though, sorry for that.

But he gets those scenes anyway. After Chapter 1: Lyn: “That’s the last of them! Fantastic work, Mark!” After Chapter 7 if you say no to going to 7x: Lyn: “I understand. That is the logical decision. If it had been up to me, I’d have ridden off and put us all in great danger. I’m glad you’re here to calm me down. Thank you. Let’s get moving! To Caelin!” After Chapter 10: Lyn: “Mark… you’re leaving, aren’t you? No, I’m not asking you to stay. It’s just… I’ll miss you. When I found you unconscious on the plains… I had no idea we would be together for so long. You’ve helped us so much, and I’m sure you’ve learned all you can from us. You’ll do just fine on your own. I have the utmost faith that you’ll be a master tactician, Mark. That’s from someone who’s seen you at work!” When you say victories, do you mean like beating Lyn Mode? Because Lyn Mode isn't very strategically complex. Even the main game isn't all that mentally strenuous, certainly not on Eliwood Normal Mode like you have to do on your first playthrough. Yeah, that's what I mean. I wouldn't call any of those characters avatars, and I wouldn't call Byleth one either. To me they are player characters.

I honestly think Mark is the worst because he adds NOTHING to the game, he only makes it worse. At least the others have something interesting about them in the gameplay, and they sometimes do cool things in the story other than saying “aren’t I just the cleverest” from time to time. There’s no point to him. My next least favourite is Kris, again because there’s no real reason they should exist, but they do add some things, like supports or the assassin subplot (neither of which I think are any good, but still). Generally they are just there to be annoying. I can see why people prefer that to ones like Robin or Corrin but if an avatar is going to exist, it should be important, rather than being bad just for the sake of it. Also Byleth isn’t really an avatar, unless you think someone like Link, or a Pokemon protagonist is an avatar. All of those are just player characters (this is partially why I dislike Byleth the least, although I’ve not played Awakening).

The 15 weight isn't that important because most units with the magic to use it effectively won't be doubling nor will they get doubled because they shouldn't be getting hit any amount of times. The magic hit formula is actually a good thing because most units don't have a huge difference in Dex and Luck so the magic hit won't be much better or worse than physical hit, but enemies will have lower magic avoid than physical avoid because they have less luck than speed (although since magic avo uses Speed and not AS like phys avo, the difference may be less than it looks), but it also doesn't care about terrain. You can also attack at 2 or 3 range without an accuracy penalty unlike bows. Even is you are still having hit issues, hit is known to be easy to boost by using Linked Attacks, getting Hit +20, Prowess Skills (Axe Lv 4 gives +16 and Lv 5 gives +20) and using Combat Arts. With Axe Prowess Lv 5 and Hit +20, that's an extra +40 hit added onto the base hit of the Bolt Axe, and there's Lancebreaker as well for Paladins and Fortress Knights.

In my Birthright playthrough I only got the A support in the previous chapter, and I knew I needed it in advance. On Hard Kaze can definitely do a lot of work by himself if you staple Rinkah onto him. When I reclassed Corrin into Ninja, he stopped being able to 1RKO due to the Strength and Might loss, so Kaze was one of the few, if not only, units I had that could 1-round on EP for a while.

There is a big difference between 2-3 range bows and 2-3 range archers. I think giving archers and snipers extra range, but mounted archers like bow knights or nomads should have 2 range. I also think the Mini Bow is fine because you can’t double at 1 range and it’s not effective against fliers. Close Counter is fine too but it should be gotten at A bows or something, C is a bit early.

I think class certification should be slightly changed so it isn’t so easy to get into busted classes, most of them involving flight. It’s really dumb how easy it is to get into Wyvern Rider compared to something like Great Knight. Maybe if you absolutely needed the required weapon ranks to certify, although some of them would needed to be lowered a little to compensate. Removing gender locks would also be lovely.

I would say it's less about Combat Arts specifically and more about the options you have on PP that aren't available on EP. Combat Arts count, but so do PP skills (like Death Blow, but even something like FE4 Wrath), staves, Rescue, gambits and ranged chip, all of which can't be done on EP. I think some games can be both. For example, Thracia has extremely potent staves so making the most out of them on Player Phase is important, but most enemies are mowed down on Enemy Phase because they are so weak, Radiant Dawn has the PP Dawn Brigade bits, which are designed differently to the EP Greil Mercenary bits, and 3 Houses is definitely PP based but you can make use of certain skill combinations to focus on EP (I imagine Conquest is like that too).

I really like the Radiant Dawn version because there's a much higher potential for strategy meaning it's possible to one-round him even on Normal Mode where his stats are the same as Hard but the hammer faces WTD. I never meant that it was a bad thing, but I did find it a bit odd because it was the first game it had ever happened in so I wasn't expecting it. Something else funny about PoR tiles is on the first boat map, Chapter 3, there are stairs where if you are next to them, you can't go straight onto them, you have to go up from the bottom (if that makes sense). I'm sure that happens in other maps but I can only remember it in that one. This also makes sense but I didn't know that was the case at the time. I do like the two in bold but I'm not huge on the other ones. But now that I think about it I also like the first couple of map themes and the map theme that plays on the desert map and the 4-part one, and the recruitment theme is really good as well. There is also the pirate one which I either love or hate.

The thing with Milady is that she has HM bonuses but they weren't supposed to exist, so her bases weren't designed the way they are.

I have only played most of these once so my rating will be based on that playthrough and the difficulty I chose. Gaiden: Probably 3/10. I think it's pretty underrated but it's just so old. The maps are bad too and the story isn't very well told. I did enjoy it more than I expected to, and it did have good mechanics and music. Genealogy of the Holy War: 7/10. My first playthrough was a lot of fun but I have no wish to replay it. The story is quite good but the gameplay suffers from big, empty maps. Like Gaiden, the mechanics are really good though. Managing inventories and pairings was cool. Thracia 776: 7/10. This game has some things that are genius but also some things that are mind-numbingly terrible. On the clever side, there's capturing/stealing, PCC, movement and constitution growths, staff warfare, escape maps, plenty of personal weapons and some really clever maps like the Manster arc and the A route. On the bad side, there's enemy move stars, pitch black fog, 1-99 hit, fatigue (only a problem on a first playthrough when you don't know who you need for the next map), status conditions lasting the whole map when they show up before Restores are available, the inability to change starting positions and some pretty horrible maps, such as 24x and 11-12. The Manster arc is probably 10/10 because it is just the best but after that it is not nearly as good. The story gets really boring until Xavier's chapter and the maps aren't that flash until the route split as well. However I do think the good things outweigh the bad. Binding Blade: 5.5/10. I tried not to do half points but I had to for this game because I couldn't decide whether it's a 5 or a 6. The map design is quite mixed and the mechanics are a downgrade from the Jugdral games which excelled in that regard. The story is a copy of FE3 and it is pretty boring. Roy is a boring lord and Merlinus is a boring advisor. However I don't agree with a lot of the other criticisms of the game, like saying that the maps are too big and it is badly balanced. Blazing Blade: 5/10. I can be firmly put in the 'FE7 bad' camp. There is not much that I really like about this game. Lyn Mode is an abomination, the story is like a bad fanfic, the protagonists aren't very interesting, the antagonists are rubbish, Mark is the worst avatar in the series, the whole idea of the Black Fang is so silly especially when you think about how this is supposed to be a prequel to FE6, I'm not a fan of the low-quality-high-quantity approach to enemies 2x effectiveness is bad, and while I am appreciating the extra Hector chapters in my current HNM playthrough, I don't see why they weren't just in Eliwood mode too. However, the map design, although it never reaches Thracia's highs, it never reaches Thracia's lows either, even if it comes close once or twice. The maps tend to range from passable to pretty good most of the time. The Dread Isle and Bern arcs were solid. Sacred Stones: 6.5/10. I like this one a lot better. The plot is not much better and neither are the lords, but the other story-important characters, such as Tana, Innes and L'arachel, are some of my favourite characters in the series. The antagonists are also pretty good. In terms of gameplay, I think it's fair to say that the maps are somewhat worse, but the mechanics are a lot better. Split promotions are great, the skill system is a bit weak but better than the previous games and I like the monsters, although they should have been combined with human enemies more often. However, the difficulty is pretty low. All the difficulties are available from the beginning but none of them are actually very hard. I made the mistake of choosing Normal on my first playthrough, although I didn't use Seth which helped balance it out a little. My current playthrough is on Difficult though. Another problem is that the enemies are as weak as FE7's and your units are just as strong, if not stronger, Seth being the main offender. Overall this is just a fun game to mess around with but it isn't that strategically deep. Path of Radiance: ??/10. I have no idea what to rate this game. The story and writing are excellent, the characters are great, supports are a thing that will happen, Laguz are interesting and the skill system is okay but there are pretty obvious flaws. The game is really easy even on Hard and BEXP breaks it even further. The maps can be really annoying. The Black Knight battle is terribly designed. The enemies are fairly bulky but they are pretty weak offensively so you can send your paladins in and they won't take much damage. There is also that weird thing with certain terrain where you need a 2-range weapon to attack an adjacent tile on certain terrain (I remember it on the bridges in the Astrid map). But more than the simple gameplay, the biggest problem is how slow the attack animations are. Enemy Phases take forever and I could make and eat lunch in the time it takes Reyson to dance. It makes playing the game feel like almost a chore which is really disappointing. I also hate how the button that lets you move around the map fast is the same button that gets rid of enemy ranges. Also the soundtrack is pretty meh, I can only think of three tracks I like. Radiant Dawn: 9/10. I love this game and it's easily my second favourite in the series. It's very flawed but I still like it. Ledges are cool, third tiers are cool even though some T2s feel like T1s, the animations are my favourite in the series, the character portraits are great, the music is great, I just really like it. The writing is not as good as PoR but still good. Compared to FE7 which was like a bad fanfic, this is like a good fanfic. Unfortunately Hard Mode is really dumb for removing quality of life things. Shadow Dragon: 7/10. I'm not sure about this one but I like it better than most people. The story and characters are all bad but Marth and Caeda had some good lines sprinkled throughout. If the localisation team had a better script maybe we could have seen something like Path of Radiance. I think the reclassing system is boring and Lance rank is the most important stat which I'm not a fan of. Honestly I don't even know why I like this game as much as I do. I am in the middle of a H2 playthrough at the moment which I am enjoying but it's hard to say why. New Mystery: 5/10. I really don't like this one very much. The story isn't well told, even though more things actually happen than in Shadow Dragon, it manages to feel so much more boring. Kris is also an atrocious addition, the prologue is bad, the assassin subplot sucks, and he just generally makes the game worse. Obviously the story isn't the reason people like this game, it's the gameplay but I didn't like that either. I only played on Normal so I know I would have been more engaged by a higher difficulty but I was scared of STRs. I found the maps pretty unenjoyable and I have no wish to replay it at the moment. Fates Birthright: 6/10. I haven't finished this one yet but I am up to the chapter after the lava one with the dragon vein so I think I can rate it. To me the gameplay feels like a combo of SS and SD so I am finding it enjoyable in that regard, although I hate My Castle because forging is dumb and so is buying buildings because you don't know what is worth spendings DV on beforehand. You also need to upgrade certain things to get Izana and Yukimura which is impossible to know beforehand. The bath houses feels unnecessarily pervy too. However the story is pretty rubbish. The characters aren't great, especially Corrin who is annoying and shouldn't be in charge of Hoshido's army. Children make no sense either. The Camilla cutscene was also eyebleach-tier. Still enjoyable overall. Fates Conquest: Only up to Ch 8 so I can't give it a proper rating. Shadows of Valentia: Right at the beginning of Act 3 so same as Conquest. Three Houses: 9/10. This is my favourite game in the series. I am probably biased because I started with it but I still really like it. The characters are excellent and I think it has the best mechanics in the series. There are many more things I like about it and also heaps I don't but I'm too lazy to go through everything.

I don't think it's that big a deal. It's only 10 exp a turn but it's like the Thief version of staff exp so I think it should be kept.

The map sizes and mechanics really need to stay the same because those are the things that make Genealogy so unique. When you receive a droppable item I think it should be sent to a convoy that anyone can access at castles (not the personal convoys). Also you can choose how much money you are giving, although you could grind up your thief by having them give 1G every turn. If they make castles like the monastery they shouldn't be any bigger than Abyss. Classes could stand to be better balanced, mostly by buffing axes and lances compared to swords. Same goes for fire and thunder magic. In terms of balancing movement types, I think the Rescue command should be added. This would help unmounted units by letting them get to the action quicker, but also give some of the mounted units with mediocre combat (like Alec or Naoise) something to do other than chip every now and then. Also Hero should get Axes (probably B rank) on promotion. I don't think supports would be all that necessary because it would mean every lady would need to support with every guy, including Finn with Tailtyu and Brigid. I do think a lot more talk conversations could be included though, as well as base conversations. There should also be a conversation for when two characters marry each other, and obviously it shouldn't be automatic like it is in the original game. A way to tell green units what to do like in the Tellius games. Recruitable Arion in Endgame. I think it would be cool if when characters marry each other, they can take one skill from their husband/wife, so I can get Pursuit on Lewyn or Astra on a mounted unit. This would mean some characters like Edain and Claud need skills to offer though. It would also be cool if there was a NG+ system that includes reclassing where a unit can reclass based on their parents and husband/wife. So on the first playthrough no one can reclass, but on playthrough 2 units can reclass based on who they married and who their parents were in the previous playthrough, as well as who they are in the current playthrough. For example, on my first playthrough I could have Azel marry Erin, and no one would be able to reclass since it's the first playthrough. Then in Gen 2 I could marry Fee to Beowulf!Dermott. Then on the NG+ playthrough, I could have Lewyn marry Erin. Both of them would have access to the Bard, Pegasus Knight and Mage->Mage Knight classes. In Gen 2, their kids would have access to the same classes as them plus their previous spouses available classes, until they marry again, then they will get their new spouses' available classes. For example, Fee would get Bard, Pegasus Knight and Mage->Mage Knight from her parents, and Sword Knight and Princess from Dermott. Then I could have her marry someone like Seliph or Ares to allow them to reclass to Master Knight. And then after a bunch of playthroughs you could have everyone be a Master Knight. It's true that would be busted but I mean who cares.

Does anyone know how Quick Riposte works against 1-2 Punch? Both of them treat AS as fast enough to double but I don't know how they'd work against each other. Also, is it possible to Triangle Attack monsters (both the 2x2 and 3x3 ones)?

What if spells worked like skills in Radiant Dawn, where learnt spells (based on Weapon Rank) don't take up capacity, but you can move them onto other units were they do take up capacity? For example, I could train Bernadetta in Faith to get Rescue and then move it onto Marianne, who's a Dark Flier, but since Rescue is so good, it would cost a lot of capacity and she'd only have room for something weak like Wind or Torch. There could also be scrolls like the ones that appear in PoR and RD, but for magic instead of skills obviously. The one thing I'm unsure about is how different magic types should work. Anima users shouldn't have access to Dark or Light spells, or Staves unless their class allows them to. This wouldn't work in 3H's system but it would in most other games. Also, slightly off-topic but I think Weight on spells should be replaced with Difficulty and should use Skill instead of Strength or Constitution to reduce AS loss.

I don't see a problem with that because other units will be using Axes as a Wyvern Lord (Edelgard, Hilda, etc). Individual units don't need to hold multiple weapon types at the same time for the weapon types to be distinct. How many times have you had a Wyvern Lord use swords in the GBA games? This is also ignoring the fact that they need to use Axes to certify for Wyvern Lord in the first place.

You don't? I'm not quite sure what your point is. Even if 3H had the traditional WT, it'd still be better to use SS against Lances and Axes because it's more likely to kill them than a single axe blow.

I like the weapon triangle in most of the games it's in, but I don't think it's a good way to make weapons distinct from each other. I prefer it as another tactical element to think about (for example using a Hero to attack a Warrior with a sword on Player Phase but having someone trade them an Axe for the Paladins on EP). However it doesn't belong in the games that don't have it. Obviously there are no playable axes in Gaiden, Old Mystery or SoV, and when every class can use any weapon, there is no point in having it in 3H. I do like that you can have it after reaching B rank in the weapon because no one will be getting B in all 3 weapon types, but I wish it wasn't a skill but just always active. I also think that Shadow Dragon shouldn't have included it because the only thing it really does is make swords a lot worse. You could argue FE7-9 did this too but if swords had 1-2 that would be better for them than no WT. I haven't played much of Fates so I'm not too sure about the expanded triangle. At the moment I kind of wish they were separate though. Bows losing hit against swords is a bit annoying when you need reliable chip. Ferdinand, Sylvain and Seteth will all be using lances most of the time because they have Swift Strikes. Also no one is reaching equippable -faire, especially if they want to be in a Master Class.