SRC

I hate to tell you, but actually think I liked both of the versions of that track, Fionorde. I have to admit that the FE1 soundtrack does have a certain charm to it that the FE3 lacks due to the changes in instrumentation and just changes in the tracks in general. I was really disappointed that the first map theme in FE11 was based more on FE3 than it was on FE1, for example. Hahah, perhaps I overcompensated in my rating of Jeigan? He sure is great when he's great but late game he's basically just chipping with Thunder Sword or something ridiculous. Bad times. But yeah I think you basically hit the nail on the head on why tier lists can be kind of a dubious exercise especially in the context of purely LTC. I think I'll definitely do a rough full recruitment list for my "new" list and compare it to my old one instead since that's probably more in line with the idea of the 2007 list anyway.

Fair enough. It should be interesting to see how that affects my evaluations of the characters when going under that route. Characters like George are extremely terrible in draft and I have more experience in that scene (read: existent experience) than in a tier scene so my biases are very transparent there.

Aw man my jank 2017 tier list is ruined already. : ( I think doing a list independent of recruiting conditions is an interesting idea for a post in the near future. This tier list was mostly just made for funsies but I appreciate your effort in helping improve it. Fe1 needs some love! I agree that Rapier!Marth is really something but I prefer the extra mobility and range (javelins+maybe gradius) offered by the cavaliers. Promotion also helps Cain and Abel's combat quite a bit and they tend to be killing machines lategame while Marth just becomes very good and stays very good while only having some absurd Rapier moments early-mid game. However, he does have thief utility and a miracle sword monopoly (if we recruit Est.) The Falchion is also practically essential to beating the game since Medeus cheats so hard in this one but I'm not sure how I would factor that into a tier list. Wendel and Merric both cost 1 turn (Merric is 1 turn out of the way and Merric recruits Wendel) and are both excellent, though I might be overrating Merric based on how much I liked him as a bosskiller in draft. Anyway I think both are solid (or spectacular in Wendel's case since he warps) under an efficiency standpoint even if they don't make sense in a lowest turn count possible run if that makes any sense. Also bear in mind the people I put in the bottom for costing turns cost way more than 1. I forgot that Darros costs turns though, haha. I'd probably only place him above like a couple units then. He's so bad that I forgot he's out of the way to recruit!

Ever wonder how your opinions and attitudes of Fire Emblem have changed over the course of nearly a decade? Thanks to the magic of Gamefaqs archived topics, we can see how I roughly evaluate the roster of FE1 in 2007 compared to what I think of them now! Keep in mind that my original tier list was not ordered within each tier, so small discrepancies between lists can be considered basically negligible. Also noteworthy: 1. I originally considered Jagen and Zaggaro(Sedgar) to be so bad that they deserved their own tier below bottom tier. Oops! 2. Chainey was forgotten in the original draft of this tier list. Ricardo was listed twice to compensate (in the same tier, no less!) 3. Numbers have also been added next to each character's name in the interest of comparing the two lists. The original list can be found here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/562649-fire-emblem-ankoku-ryu-to-hikari-no-tsurugi/39858849 (It's post #2) [spoiler=2007] Top Tier: 1.Abel 2.Hardain 3.Kain 4.Katua (Catria) 5.Oguma 6.Navarre 7.Paola 8.Marich (Merric) 9.Julian High Tier: 10.Linda 11.Astoria 12.Raddy 13.Est 14.Gordan 15.Samson 16.Marth 17.Wendal Mid Tier: 18.Alan 19.Barts 20.Caesar 21.Lawrence 22.Sheeda 23.Medea 24.Minerva 25.Chiki 26.Gato 27.Kashim (Castor) Low Tier: 28.Villuck (Vyland) 29.Maji (Cord) 30.Roger 31.Toms (Dolph) 32.Doga 33.Roshe 34.Machis (Matthis) 35.Thomas 36.George 37.Beck 38.Jake Bottom Tier: 39.Banetou 40.Boa 41.Maria 42.Michelan 43.Rena 44.Ricardo 45.Riff 46.Saji 47.Ulf 48.Daros 49.Ellis 50.Ricardo Jeigan Tier: 51.Jeigan 52.Zaggaro Here is my new and improved quickly thrown together tier list. I made it under the assumption that no character is assumed to be used besides Marth. (This is why Maria has utility as a warper despite Rena existing and the whitewings count as costing many turns independently of Minerva & Maria's recruitments.) [spoiler=2017] Top Tier: 1.Kain (+2) 2.Abel (+1) 3.Sheeda (+19) 4.Rena (+39) 5.Wendell (+12) 6.Hardin (-4) 7.Marth (+9) High Tier: 8.Ogma (-3) 9.Navarre (-3) 10.Merric (-2) 11.Jagen (+40) 12.Barts (+7) 13.Boa (+27) 14.Julian (-5) Mid Tier: 15.Roshe (+18) 16.Machis (+17) 17.Wolf (+30) 18.Gordon (-4) 19.Kashim (+8) 20.Maji (+9) 21.Medea (+2) 22.Astram (-11) 23.Ricardo (+21/+27) 24.Chainey (???) 25.Minerva (+1) 26.Maria (+15) Low Tier: 27.Zaggaro (+24) 28.Biraku (0) 29.Doga (+3) 30.Saji (+16) 31.Daros (+17) 32.Raddy (-20) 33.Caesar (-13) 34.Thomas (+1) 35.Gato (-9) 36.Lawrence (-15) 37.Linde (-27) Bottom Tier: 38.Toms (-7) 39.Roger (-9) 40.Jake (-2) 41.Beck (-4) 42.Michelan (0) 43.Ellis (-6) 44.Riff (+1) 45.Palla (-38) 46.Samson (-31) 47.Aran (-29) 48.Catria (-44) 49.Bantu (-10) 50.Est (-37) 51.Chiki (-26) 52.George (-16) Top 5 units that rose from my initial list: 5. Ricardo (+21/27) / Zaggaro (+24) One of my major changes from my previous makeshift tier list to my new makeshift tier list is the acknowledgement that most characters just aren't great and either bring little to the table, aren't worth the table, cost turns, or all of the above! Ricardo brings moderate thief utility to the table while being basically free to recruit while Zaggaro can nuke fliers and deal a little bit of chip damage with 9 movement and is actually free to recruit. Neither of these guys are in any way excellent but my idea that getting a little something for nothing is better than getting some of something for a lot is very apparent when comparing the two lists. 4. Boa (+27) Poor Boa got profiled just because he's old and his growths are low. Boa's 15 base speed makes him a great dead-Gharnef-on-a-stick, not to mention that as a sage he provides decent chip support and great staff support. Best of all, Boa joins reasonably early and automatically, which are both qualities I apparently pay attention to a lot more now than before. 3. Wolf (+30) Wolf doesn't have the best growths or bases in the game, but they get the job done. What Wolf does have is an excellent move stat and easy access to the Partia, making him one of the most user-friendly and surprisingly effective bow users in the game. 2. Rena (+39) Rena can barely level up in this game. However, she can still warp. Rena is basically warp personified, so up up up she went. 1. Jagen (+40) Was this ever even a question? Poor old Jeigan was given the below-bottom tier treatment in my old list for his poor averages, but I overlooked all of the great things the old man brings to the table. He's your best all-around combat unit for quite some time and joins from the get-go! With a silver sword he is a reasonable unit to deploy all the way to midgame, but his lategame really kept him from me listing him as a top tier unit. Top 5 units that fell from my initial list: 5. Linde (-27) On paper you would almost believe that Linda is a slightly worse version of Merric. In practice, she perhaps couldn't be more disappointing. Aura is a neat tome but it is not even close to Excalibur, not to mention that Linde joins much later and more out of the way with growths and bases merely comparable to Merric's. What a shame! 4. Aran (-29) & Samson (-31) While I considered listing these guys separately, the irony of including them together was just too rich. Both of these guys embody what values changed most from my initial tier list to this one: late join times, annoying turn costs, and solid level 20 stats. Unfortunately, I favor the first two nowadays over the latter, so down they went. Turn counts are real jerks, aren't they? 3. Est (-37) Oh, the shame! Although I did not rank Est in the top tier, her ability to quickly promote to a dragon knight for that sweet 14 base def and to gain offense stats quick to complement that bulk had me vastly overrate Est and her late join time, difficulty to level up, and vast turn cost. 2. Palla (-38) Seeing a pattern, here? Palla is a reasonable unit but her turn cost is just too steep to be considered for a serious run. (Unless you're doing one of those weird full recruitment runs instead of those super sexy minimum recruitment runs.) Minerva, as a comparison, costs less turns and is generally better (with the hardly contested speed wing), and only just managed to scrape my middle tier. 1. Catria (-44) Oh no! Not my waifu! Unfortunately for Catria, 20/20 averages don't do much for me anymore, and no amount of 30% def growths can stop her huge turn cost from being a liability. She's a reasonable combat unit that only costs a few turns if you were planning to recruit Minerva anyway, but in any low-turn or efficient run the turn cost isn't worth it even if you really want a flier. Well, that's my journey from 2007 to present. This is mostly an FYI but feel free to discuss/make fun of my placements from either list if you would like. Pretty amazing how 10 years and a few fe1 drafts can change a person's opinion, huh? We went from averages are king in 2007 to turns are king in 2017. Check back in 2027 to see how my crazy opinions have changed even further. You won't believe where Doga ends up!

They're alright but pretty uninspiring after the book 1 cavaliers were among the best characters in the entire game. I'm kind of on board with Jedi on Cecil being the best. Her high speed base and growth means she'll be able to double with lances in no time and thus be way ahead of the cavaliers until at least mid game. Her bulk growth leaves a lot to be desired but decent bases/promo gains in the area along with orbs can help mitigate that. Meanwhile, nothing can be done to really boost early game performance. Under my argument that it's difficult to replace a good early game, it shouldn't be too surprising that I think Luke is second best. Poor Luke gets a bad rap since his growths are nothing special, but 30% str 40% spd aren't the worst and his huge 90% HP growth more than makes up for his shortcomings in questionable stats like luck and skill. More importantly, his bases are solid enough, but his ability to double with lances is just going to come much later than Cecil's which no amount of HP growth can make up for. Poor Rody just asks for so much and gives so little in return. His bases just leave him so far behind from the get-go, and by the time he's able to catch up to his comrades (~15-20 levels would be my guess), they're promoting and using orbs which keep any of his leads from mattering. Having better rounded and slightly better growths just isn't worth starting with deficits in str, spd, and def. He's still way better than a lot of the cast due to his class and join time but I probably wouldn't be happy with him outside of a draft or PMU.

I mean let's be honest here. Gaiden has maps that are embarrassingly bad even by FE1 standards, a story that is laughably simple and incoherent, and horribly unrefined mechanics, items, and terrain compared to FE1. Gaiden looks and sounds way better, but this is partly because it came out later in Famicom's lifetime and technological advancement. No, the reason Gaiden is so endearing compared to FE1 isn't due to refined mechanics or looking pretty, it's mostly due to unique mechanics and streamlined UI and item system. Gaiden has a lot of cool ideas and even though they aren't really refined or balanced (angel ring, demon fighter loops, Alm in general), they're still really interesting in the ways you can break them and allow you do do things you really can't do in other Fire Emblem games. The one-item inventory and smaller teams also speeds up the gameplay substantially and helps make up for the Famicom's hardware limitations. Edit: I guess you are not necessarily making the argument that FE2 is superior in all of those regards, but for the sake of argument I am leaving my post as-is in case that was your intent.

Ready to test my theory that anybody can be good as a mercenary with thundersword? Congratulations, mercenary!Robin.

It didn't even come to mind. It's possible I stream/youtube a Grayless version in the near future. (Winter beak is so looooong not that I'm complaining.) Luka would have to replace Gray's role as savior. Not sure how that one works out. Funny thing is Alm soloing his part of chapter 4 should be a non-issue.

It's mostly due to game mechanics. Once you reach level 10, experience gains grinds almost to a halt, but most characters are able to avoid this due to promoting at level 10 or earlier, Unfortunately, May promotes at level 20, which would probably be the equivalent of level 30 or 40 in a normal Fire Emblem game. This is really difficult to do without grinding and is made worse because, while her base stats are rather good, he growths are not so she plays a very limited role compared to Celica and Gray in chapter 3 and beyond. tl;dr May isn't needed much past the early game and isn't worth the time or resources to try to get her caught up to other characters due to awkward game mechanics.

So there was a challenge run concept proposed in this topic the other day requiring you to complete an entire Fire Emblem without recruiting a single character. http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=67837 In most of the Fire Emblem games, this isn't a big deal since your starting party tends to be reasonably strong and viable backups come pouring in as the game progresses, Gaiden is different. Almost none of your roster joins automatically. In fact, aside from a few characters that are mandatory to recruit in order to advance the story, nobody joins automatically at all! All in all, this means we're going to beat the game with a total of 6 characters split between two parties. Pretty crazy, but Gaiden itself is also crazy so maybe it will balance out. Update! The full playlist for a Grey-less version of the run can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4y9vIwFHQJohlg8l3C2pme61h_XG3but Chapter 1: We start out pretty strong here. Luka is required to be recruited to advance the story and Gray is blocking the pathway. (Gray can be skipped through a simple exploit though I forgot about this at the time of the run.) This makes the beginning a somewhat standard affair with one exception: the leather shield mercenary. Since I go the mercenary path with Gray, the team has no magic users, so the mercenary mini-boss has to be whittled down repeatedly with weak physical attacks. Luckily, Alm is a pretty cool guy that can take hits, so he can just park on the healing tile while the boss slowly but surely is done in by Alm's barrage of 2-3 damage attacks. After the thundersword is obtained, the chapter is a piece of cake. Gray doubles and one-rounds just about everything and both Alm and Luka can take a hit or two. Lion head bonuses are +3 speed to Luka to help him double in mid-game and +2 def to Alm and +1 def to Gray to help their durability just a bit. Chapter 2: After a relatively easy chapter 1, chapter 2 is some bad times. For mandatory characters, we get our choice between May and Boey. Boey has decent durability later on, but his offense is hot garbage throughout the game so I think May is the pick here. Lion heads are +2 Power for Cellica and +1 speed to May so pirates will go down soundly in one round of combat. The main issue for chapter 2 is the frailty of the units. Neither Celica nor May can really take physical attacks well, so the leather shield has to be obtained very cautiously. The leather shield helps Celica quite a bit, but I still have to take certain maps slowly to avoid her getting swarmed and more or less keep May in the back row behind her at all times. Fortunately, this isn't too difficult largely because the pirate ship chapters are FULL of choke points. Chapter 3: With Luka and Gray promoted to Knight and Hero (Myrmidon), there isn't really anything standing in the way of steamrolling Alm's side of chapter 3. However, Cellica's team needs a LOT of help. So, on the final map, Gray is killed off (surprisingly difficult to do) so he can be brought back in a revival shrine. He's a Demonfighter with a thunder sword at this point in time, so once we get him it's good times. Getting to him is the hard part. Celica's team being undermanned is an even bigger problem in chapter 3. In fact, it's nearly impossible to save Palla and Catria here without a huge amount of luck/rigging. Basically the eastern part of the chapter in impossible with our current team, so we've got to go to the revival shrine. This wouldn't be a huge problem, except that it also happens to house 3 dragonzombies. Celica can take them out with ease, but once again durability is a problem. Not only can the team only take 1-2 hits total from these jerks, Celica lacks the HP to use Angel to kill them all unless she has 25 HP! This meant an extra trip to the graveyard before I get Gray back from the dead. Luckily, having a demon fighter gray solves a lot of problems! He cut through everything with ease, alternating between the lightning sword and darkness sword. He even killed that jerk Geyse in 2 hits! Lots of killing means lots of experience points, so Gray actually gets to level 10 and gets to promote to villager so he can later repromote to archer. As we move into chapter 4. Chapter 4: The first map is a little annoying since becoming a Villager erases Gray's insane Demon Fighter resistance stat, but with some support from Celica with her healing and 5-range magic ring attacks, he gets through it. It's totally worth it, though. Gray is a pretty good archer. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv26mxrMJ50 Once he has access to the 5 range steel bow, the whole chapter is basically a joke. The only except are the always-annoying Bigls. I actually have to rig some turns so they multiply less. One or two turns of them multiplying by 5 or 6 renders the map unbeatable since Gray can't kill them as fast as they multiply. The same goes for Alm's side, as he gets a promotion and a silver bow at this time, so after a map of slight growing pains, him and Luka become a 2 man wrecking squad. Things are even better when Ruka gets the speed ring and Alm gets the Holy Bow in the fear shrine. The HP recovery and stat boosts from those items make Alm and Luka nearly invincible. They even find a super-rare Dragonshield as Alm lays wastes to easily a hundred dragon zombies. Not too useful hear, but with a 1/2000 drop rate, a cool souvenir for sure! As usual, the biggest pain here is Rudolph. He hits hard and has huge defenses, so I just have Alm go in alone with a Speed Ring for the massive defensive advantage (prevents Alm from being doubled as well as granting him massive avoid thanks to automatic 40 speed). Alm only does 4x2 damage per round, but with the critical hits mixed in, is enough to slowly take Rudolph down to finish Alm's side of the chapter. Afterwards, we get Maisen, our last mandatory character. Wheeeee! Chapter 5: Maisen gets the Dragonshield, meaning that Alm's squad now effectively has 3 invincible units. Maisen doesn't hit hard or fast, but his movement is good which makes him a formidable meatwall or magekiller during certain moments. Alm mainly cleans house by himself, though. The only noteworthy battle of chapter 5 is of course the finale itself. Gray is a bowknight now and proves to be a valuable asset in escorting Celica upwards. He one-rounds just about everything with 1-5 range, including those obnoxious Bigls! He takes a bit of damage when trying to clear some of the witches near Doma, but his monstrous HP stat lets him tank a lot of them despite his Res stat of 2 and no clerics or healing tiles to bail him out. Celica herself is also surprisingly strong. She has great speed, reasonable defenses thanks to loads of lion's head bonuses, and a good magic arsenal made better with the overpowered magic ring for 5 range attacking. She holds her own better than she has in any other run I've done with her, so getting her to Alm and Doma for some game winning healing+100% crit support with Alm isn't too much of a problem. Anyway, it was kind of crazy run, but aside for a few maps that were dumb, this was definitely more of just a novelty run than a challenge run. Like in most Fire Emblem games, it pays off in Gaiden to have a small number of really overpowered units. Maybe next time I will try it without Gray... For those wanting pics, I didn't take a whole lot of this one, but I went back and took a few of my final battle squad. Enjoy! [spoiler=pics or it didn't happen] Alm (Falchion equipped) and Luka (Quick Ring Equipped) Maisen (Dragon Shield Equipped) and Celica (Magic Ring Equipped) May (Magic Ring Equipped) and Gray (Silver Bow Equipped) Also for those seeing May's stats and wondering if she was useless for the finale, she actually contributed a little bit! The Magic Ring with its 5 range solves a lot of problems, so despite her horrible stats and 4 move, she got in some decent damage with Aura (~20 per hit) and the Bigls for other characters to finish off. Not too shabby, but nowhere near as insane as Gray on the right heheh.

Even with modest grinding I'd still advise promoting at a low level or the minimum level. You're still going to get most of your stat boosts from promotion and once your dudes are in their final form they tend to be in good shape regardless of when you promoted them. You can do stuff like the Demonfighter>Villager loop and level people to 20 to get really really high stats, but it's just not necessary and your dudes are going to be so good that it might detract from the gameplay. Getting through the game without grinding isn't too tough but it can be a little annoying if you're doing it blind. Probably the main concern is focusing your experience on units that are actually good late game. (i.e. Demon Fighters, Falconknights, Healers in particular)

Promote as soon as possible unless you are heavily grinding. 80% of the characters have horrible growth rates anyway, and because of the experience formula, you will gain experience at a much better rate promoted than you would if you continue to level past level 5, 7, 10 etc. (A good example is Alm, whose Experience gain gradually slows down as until he hits level 10 then explodes past promotion.) Don't worry about missing any spells; even the really higher level ones can be obtained after promotion.

Well I cared enough to go back and try to beat your turn count. I got 140 turns, so I guess you're the reigning champ of fe1 heheh.

Right, the PAL/NTSC differences are also worth mentioning. I think the games will still run, but the picture is going to be a bit off the the music will probably play slower. Again, try at your own risk because I do not have the hardware to test this. Yeah, the $40-50 figure is for a NP cart. Their differences are mostly aesthetic (just missing the S ranks I believe?), so I'd pass on the retail release unless you're a collector.

I know for a fact that FE4 has some copy protection because I was unable to play it on my American SNES with a Game Genie in it. (So I wouldn't have to cut the tabs in my system.) If you're using a 3rd party device, the game may think it's a game copier and refuse to run. The game runs fine on an American system by soldering the tabs, but unfortunately I have no knowledge of how it works on a PAL system. FE5 may have similar issues, but FE3 should be fine. That being said, cartridge-only copies of FE3 and 4 will only run you about $10 each, so it's worth a shot even if they don't work. Thracia 776 is like $40-50 though so I suggest picking up the other 2 first, then only get it if you're able to finish them without compatibility issues.

Wow, nice Contra run. I knew you were good at Contra but you flat out made it look like a big, bubbly joke.

You do realize that America is ultimately a Republic, right? I understand the outrage about the popular opinion not always mattering, but that is a natural feature of its form of government. Its democratic processes are indirect. Sure, you get your pick of your candidate once they reach the ballot, but a lot of the process is intentionally undemocratic by design. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but with the increased scrutiny of politicians lately has obviously left a lot of people very unhappy with the system.

I was thinking about just letting you deck out but I wanted to make you pay after like 20 turns of gravity bind.

This is a format where everyone gets to use Change of Heart so I'm used to that feeling. Also this is the last round so there are going to be a ton of free cards. Terradoor gets to go through the scraps first, though!

Pfft, nice try guys but ol' SRC is a step ahead of you. http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Duel_Monsters_4:_Battle_of_Great_Duelist:_Yugi_Deck_promotional_cards but really I just remember using it in eternal duelist's soul but that's not important

Last Will yeah i forgot to list it i know i know

Gotta keep this parade of big 4 stars goin'. Vorse Raider. Btw, it seems like we're starting to wrap things up. Should we go 1 more full round so we have 10 cards each?

I already picked that but forgot to cross it off the list. Sorry 'bout that.

I or someone else would have taken confiscation so it's kind of a wash. Also Solemn Judgment does negate Jinzo's summon or Royal Decree's activation because it happens before they technically hit the field (Same with Horn of Heaven and Seven Tools of the Bandit). A face down Royal Decree can not prevent Solemn Judgment (Solemn is a counter trap so it is too fast to respond with a non-counter trap) but a Royal Decree already active will prevent solemn judgment from working. Also relevant: Solemn Judgment cannot negate Mystic Tomato's and Cyber Stein's special summon abilities since it can only negate inherent summons and not summons as a result of abilities. Gotta love Yugioh rulings!