RobinLucinaFan

Hero Alear is pretty solid.

Would be easier to get behind a lot of ships in this game if they didn't go out of their way to remove nearly every element of romantic dialogue from the S supports.

The only way I would do it would be if the game rewarded me for it; if I got some additional I otherwise don't have access to.

On Tiki's maddening paralogue, I just used the 10 waves of reinforcements to farm exp (I babied Etie enough that she could consistently one-shot them). Once I cleared the entire map but Tiki's room, I had a unit step on the tile to open her room and huddled my entire team into the barrier room on the far right on the map. Tiki's movement is inferior to her teammates and I used this to my advantage. Once they got to the barrier room on the far right, I had Louis block the entrance and used some canto and warp/rescue staff shenanigans to take out Tiki's dragon companion while letting Sigurd/Louis tank the enemy phase. I then rinsed repeat the following turn.

Which is probably what got a lot of us as I am so used to the concept of the early units having the most potential and the late game units generally being there for people who did not take the time to properly build the early game units.

I think a compromise to this is introducing a main cast of 12 characters who cannot die in the story and who you will automatically get a gameover with should they fall in battle. The game can spend time fleshing out these characters over the course of the story. There can then be 18 additional characters who can permanently die in battle, but are only referenced in passing in the story and are only really fleshed out in support conversations (and paralogues and paired endings ). I feel like we could get a persona like focus on characters while still maintaining the permadeath of element of things within reason.

I started maddening as my first run, got to the middle of the game and then restarted on maddening on a separate save and it was much easier. What made it much easier was that I did not waste exp on trash units. In my initial run, I actually gave Alfred, Clanne and Boucheron the time of the day. On my followup run, I minimized my use of lol-tier units and funneled a lot of exp into Alear early game. Made things so much easier. Oh and Lyn is amazing. Easily the best emblem in the game after Tiki. Speaking of Tiki, I recommending doing her paralogue right after you get Alcryst (assuming you haven't built up Etie). I then recommend farming the 10 rounds of reinforcements that come in at the bottom of the map. Great source of early game exp.

I think this has been harped on elsewhere, but another thing I notice about the supports is that they appear to cut the romantic elements of the S supports to a bare minimum. Not every S support has to be romantic mind you, but I don't think a single S support uses the words "I love you" at any point (I think Ivy uses the L word, but only during her B support and in a different context). Some of them allude to romantic love (i.e. Chloe and her desire for a fairy tale relationship), but it's mostly assurances of being "allies forever" or "close companions." Then again, maybe I'm just annoyed that Etie put my Alear in the permanent "jogging buddy" friendzone.🤣

Three Houses took support conversations and turned them into miniature novels. I initially thought Dorothea was just a typical flirt, but quickly became mesmerized about how much depth was actually packed into her character during the B and A support convos; didn't hesitate to have my Byleth S support. Same went for a lot of characters in that game. IAnd it wasn't just the prospect of romancing anyone either. Lysithea, Felix, Sylvain, Ferdinand, Dimitri (best written FE character in the entire series imo), Ashe, Bernadetta. All cliches at the surface, but quickly characters I found myself deeply caring about due to how much depth they conveyed. I came into this game with the same expectations and stumbled across the archer, Etie. Sure, they certainly seems to only care about "gains" and getting her muscles "a treat", but I figured there was going to be something more to her physical fitness fixation after seeing Alear's C Support conversation with her where he finds himself astonished by her confidence. So I quickly made Etie a staple in my party and turned her into a OHKO murder machine. Around the middle of the game, I see her B support about jogging with Alear. Initially I'm disappointed, but quickly figure that the writer is saving all of the ammunition for the A support. Towards the end of the game, i finally see her A support where Alear talks about wanting to inspire others with physical fitness. Am again disappointed, but I hold out hope that maybe that S support will tie everything together and give Etie some character depth. Lo and behold, I get to the S support conversation and it is every bit as disappointing as the previous conversations. Not only does it fail to make Etie any more than a one dimensional character, but you can't really even call it a romance. Alear and Etie decide to become "jogging buddies" forever. Yay!! 🤣 I then think that maybe they will clean it up in the epilogue, but even that is bare bones! Something about Etie picking flowers while Alear rules. Maybe Three Houses spoiled us a little bit, but I feel like very little thought was put into these characters and their respective support conversations. I feel like literally no thought was put into the epilogue texts. Which is a shame because they have historically only been about a paragraph or two or length. Does not take a lot of time to write them (I could probably write something meaningful about every single character/pairing in a single day if I wanted to), but it just felt especially uninspired in this game. I pulled all of Alear's support conversations on youtube and I got the same vibe from supports in general. Hopefully some of this (i.e. the epilogues) gets addressed in the DLC, but I doubt it.

Don't waste your divine pulses (especially if your first run of the game is on maddening). Only use them when you absolutely have to (i.e. avoid permadeath). I spent two hours on Tiki's parologue and wasted just about all of my divine pulse to effectively prevent units from missing attacks or being damaged by them. I cleared out everything but the last room with Tiki in it and was fresh out of divine pulses. Had to play old school Fire Emblem then and wiped out everyone but Tiki and some calvary unit. I was on the verge of winning and just needed to last one more turn. Due to the strategy I used on the previous turn, Yunaka was in the enemy calvary unit's range (but had low health), but her avoid stat was relatively high and I wasn't worried. Big mistake. Two hours of my life I will never get back.😱