Playing FE 2 for the first time

[ragnell.]

Could you give me some good advice? thanks beforehand.

[Xinnidy]

The game is fairly easy, you can grind with no real penalties since there's no weapon uses to worry about. Be aware of your mages' HP though as they can squish if you're using a high hp-cost spell and they get overrun by tons of enemies unless you KNOW he/she can handle it. And remember that you can revive people a few times in each of the lion shrines (which you also use for promotions), so it's not all over and reset when a unit dies. The sister's resire spell is innacurate, but you'll likely use it to level them up if you're grinding. Like the mages, just don't let them be cornered by tons of enemies.

The villagers are fine units when you class change them, and in early game it's not that hard to get them up to rank. Cliff tends to be a good mage because of his spell choices, and Robin tends to be put as an archer but it's up to you to choose what you want/need most in your army. Alm himself tends to be pretty strong throughout the game and Celica is also fine and she can use swords or magic so you won't have problems if you level them up decently, just don't be careless as they're main characters and all that.

Bows are VERY good in this game because they're 1~3 if you're "unarmed" and 1~5 if you have a bow equipment or are a Bow Knight. That also means enemy archers can be very annoying if they're on par with your units or can't be reached easily, so it's nice to have a good mounted unit or a sister with warp for such situations (or your own bow user if he's good enough).

Falcoknights are also amazing in Celica's route because there are plenty of monsters and they're effective against monsters. It's also nice to have a bunch of units at classes with decent enough base res to handle magic, but that's only if it's troubling you really, high HP meat shields and decent leveling tends to be enough.

Items and equipment are always nice to give your units an extra boost but don't worry if you miss one item or can't get it to drop from an enemy, the game hands you nice enough things if you know what you're doing.

My advice is pretty much all a given, if you know your FE then just don't be silly, it's relatively easy. You'll adapt to this game's differences to the other main titles as long as you pay a little attention. I'd be more worried about adapting to the older NES FE controls, it may ruin your fun if you're WAY too used to the newer games. That only depends on how much you want to play the game though.

Oh god I'm a motormouth.

Edit: Wait you played FE5 you're fine.

I'll just let the wall of text here to look pretty and hurt people's eyes.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Xinnidy

[Integrity]

go up

win

seriously, gaiden isn't much trouble at all

You don't even really need this thread.

[Baldrick]

go up

win

I went up.

Alm is now stuck at the top of the village and can't get out.

What do I do next?

@OP: Gameplay is fairly simple, similar to SS, but be aware that mages lose HP when casting. Also, bows and some magic spells actually have a range advantage over melee units.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Kamekameha

[ragnell.]

thanks! One more question. Should I promote early like in FE 5? or if I do that some units will get behind late

Edited September 8, 2012 by ragnell.

[riariadne]

There is no benefit of waiting to promote. Do it as soon as you can, all the time.

[Xinnidy]

I don't know if the mages can learn their lv11+ spells after they promote. So I used to level them until they got them all and then promoted.

Also IIRC promoting increases your stats to the promoted class' bases if they're below it, which, considering the general growth rates in this game, is pretty good. I used to promote units a little later (like somewhere in lv13-15) if they had good enough growths to pump some stats above the bases, but promoting early doesn't really harm you, especially with three tiers for most classes.

I'd recommend to class change the villagers as soon as you can too, can't really go wrong on that one.

[Quirino]

Mages still learn all spells if they promote early, so really, it's best to promote ASAP.

I just advice you to use every unit when you get them and just use them until they can't compete well with the enemies anymore. For example Robin, Grey and Cleive will quickly lose their usefulness.

Xinnidy also said it, but my recommended promotions for the villagers:

Cliff -> Mage

Robin -> Archer

Grey -> Mercenary

Atlas -> Cavalier

Will you grind during your playthrough? A non-grinding run is possible, but pretty difficult.

Furthermore, in a nutshell: everyone has a standard weapon, a weapon can be equipped and can't break, spells take HP and are learned by leveling, bows have 1-3 range, 1-5 range when an actual bow is equipped, along with a high movement once fully promoted to a bow knight. That makes the archers among the best units in the game. Growths are lower than any other game and the chapters are like the parts in Radiant Dawn.

[MacLovin]

Do whatever you want on your first run-through.

It's not that hard of a game.

Also, Alm is like fe10 Ike.

[ragnell.]

Now I am in Chapter 4 and I think this game is not that easy ( maybe because the game is trolling me with almost no growth besides Alm, Est, Catua and occasionally Celica and the absurd amount of misses I have been experiencing ) . For me Alm's route is more difficult because my peg ( forgot her name) could not keep up with the rest and the only one that can take a bunch of hits and kills in counters is Alm ( Ruka can withstand physicals attacks but witches laugh at him), and sadly Machilda as been great until now, but her non existence growth in this run is hurting her utility.

[Byte2222]

Re: Growths & misses:

I think it's already been said but FE2 has low growths. Seriously, 1-stat levels are par for the course and 2-stats it doing well. The game (probably) isn't trolling you, the growths are just lower. This is also one of the reasons to promote early, class bases go up quicker than actual unit growths (unless you're Est or Cliff).

You might already know this but FE2 (actually all FEs prior to FE6) uses one random number for hits. This means you get a lot more variability, randomness and vindictiveness than the later games which use 2 RNs, making high "hit"s more accurate and low "hit"s less accurate, favouring the player.

Also: there's no res growth (though you've probably noticed this by now) so certain units (e.g. Matilda, Cliff) are just better at dealing with mages than others (Luka, Grey, Valbo).

tl;dr the game's not being mean, Gaiden's just weird. You may already know the stuff I'm telling you.

[Lakmé]

During chapter 4, do the Celica chapters first (very easy if the whitewings are promoted) but don't go to the last location: instead I advice you to go to the hidden village in the Lost Woods and give to Alm's army the Dragon Shield and the Angel Ring (give it to Alm for some time to get +2 during level-up's). Then you can go to the last location.

Also, did you recruit Norma and get the Magic Ring in Mila's Temple?

Edited September 16, 2012 by Goddess Anna

[ragnell.]

I got zeke and this guy is too great against the dragons on alm's route and an excellent replacement for Machilda. Also got Norma and is my primary healer for celica's group ( along with the magic ring). Also I knew about the 1 number for the RGN but when I passed one player phase without hitting anything I felt trolled hahaha .

On the other hand, Paola, Catua and Est dominated Celica's route.