Does Thracia 776 deserve it's reputation for difficulty?

[The Void]

I know the game has things that can catch you off guard if you go in blind, but the enemies aren't really that strong compared to the playable characters, there's warping, etc.

Well, does it? I'm curious.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Enemies aren't really that strong my ass

Sety gets 3HKOed by everything. Thats hardcore

Edited August 13, 2013 by I have a Dragon Boner

[X-Naut]

The difficulty is less from enemy strength than it is from their equipment and numbers. You also have to work around infinite range status staves with a limited supply of Restore, enemies being able to capture unarmed healers, escape missions robbing you of anyone that doesn't leave before Leif, and of course the RNG.

[Chiki]

Yes. I consider it harder by far than any other FE I've played except for FE13 Lunatic+.

Look at 24x and see if you can do that without any guides.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

24x is easier than Manster

[Refa]

FE5 required me to restart more than any other FE game.

Heck, I'm sure it required relative experts like dondon to do so too, albeit for...different reasons, heheh (lol staff accuracy).

So yeah, I would say that.

[BrightBow]

It depends on how you look at it, I guess.

It isn't one of the Fire Emblem games where you can munchkin one unit to an absurd degree of power and have it finish the whole game by itself. In Thracia, units with high stats are just tools. Useful tools to be sure but a tool that is only irreplaceable when dealing with something powerful like bosses. They don't work against anything.

24x is of course the ultimate example of that. Even though individual enemies are weak, it is near impossible to beat with brute force.

But Ballista are a more common example. They are one of the few tools in the enemies arsenal that combine power and accuracy and can wear down even powerful PCs, while extremely limiting the movement of the immensely frail staff users and mages.

Actually, even warpskipping isn't that easy. You get yourself in the final chapters and you might find out that you lack the resources needed to defeat the bosses and disable the staffers. Sure, it's possible but you need to plan ahead in advance and that requires full knowledge of the game. Everyone else is better off not to miss out on any maps.

Of course, once you find a working strategy there is not much challenge to be had without an objective that goes beyond "clearing the chapter" even if it's just "clear chapter more smoothly" or "try something different".

That's a strong contrast to something like... lets say, Awakening with it's entirely random skill distribution on Lunatic+, which changes the entire situation with any retry and where even the best possible strategy might face an overwhelming chance of failure.

But I don't think that the game should be considered easy just because of this.

Heck, I don't see people claiming that Advance Wars is easy just because turn-by-turn guides will always work with 100% accuracy.

Finding working strategies is what this game is about. And without relying on an absurd amount of luck, that is occosiaonally pretty difficult,

Edited August 13, 2013 by BrightBow

[Chiki]

24x is easier than Manster

Without a guide telling you where every tile is? I doubt it.

[dondon151]

you probably need one test run to figure out just what the map looks like, but you could feasibly do it without a guide otherwise. the warpskip strat that i used traverses only exactly one of the warp tiles, and the warp tiles do nothing if you perform any other action except wait.

[General Horace]

first time through maybe, but honestly every time afterwards the enemies are atrocious and scrolls are totally broken, along with some weapons you acquire, and you get the often and early.

[shadykid]

FE12 Lunatic(+)>>FE5 in difficulty

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Without a guide telling you where every tile is? I doubt it.

I don't even know there was a Warp Tile in 24x before seeing online guide roughtly 4 months ago

And I already played Thracia 3 times before that

[Djeets]

it was more to that most of my units were too powerless to even wound the generals...

if it was not othin, i can't beat this game

[dondon151]

final chapter is very doable on 0%

the easiest way is to use your staff users and sleep the low mag warlords, then use sety to deal with elf.

[Blademaster!]

If you were to compare it to the other games in the series, yes its reputation on difficulty is deserved.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Blademaster!

[Chiki]

I don't even know there was a Warp Tile in 24x before seeing online guide roughtly 4 months ago

And I already played Thracia 3 times before that

You must've been crazy lucky then.

I beat 24x for the first time when I was around 14 without warp skipping, and it was just unfair.

Though FE5 is a lot easier once you know the game well.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

The first time I finished Thracia was like 9 ish month ago >_>

And I do it with Warp Skip, so that explains

To be fair the part where I did not warp skip never triggered the panel either

Edited August 13, 2013 by I have a Dragon Boner

[Gregosa]

I'd say so. It's the only one I never completed.

[CT075]

a lot of fe5's difficulty really only applies the first time around

afterwards it's just kind of annoying if you forget (24x >_>)

[Ϲharlie]

Enemies aren't really that strong my ass

Sety gets 3HKOed by everything. Thats hardcore

If they even manage to hit him.

[The Void]

If you were to compare it to the other games in the series, yes its reputation on difficulty is deserved.

Like New Mystery's Lunatic Modes?

[BluBlaDe]

Depends on how you play. Trying to use everything you have and skipping annoying parts can make the game much more easy.

Trying to steal all the cool weapons, getting everything and using only crappy weapons makes the game harder but more enjoyable IMO.

Anyway it does deserve the title of hardest Fire Emblem game but it's not impossible.

Sure you can get damn unlucky and retry a chapter tons of times but if you played old school NES hard games you should be used to that level of difficulty.

[Vorena]

Well, if we are looking at only completing FE5 and not putting any other user restrictions on gameplay FE5 should be up there for its reputation as being one of the hardest FE games to play. Even though most of that difficulty I think comes from inadequate preparation. For example, if you do well to make sure you have multiple units trained up, then fatigue will never be an issue. Capture often for a variety of things like Warp or Reward staves along with regular weapons you never run into issues with supplies. If anything, near the end of the game I recall having issues having too much stuff built up. From what I paid attention to there are 3 chapters where you can basically infinite arena abuse which helps remove any issues with not having strong units and gives you lots of money where you can therefore buy whatever supplies you need and avoid the capturing mechanic too. Couple this with scrolls and you never should really have any problems with low stat units (even though my scrolled fergus managed to get horrifically RNG screwed).

The only real issue with this game I feel is really just how the mechanics and luck can completely ruin your run. I recall on Chapter 22 I decided to wait out Cyus to leave and take the whole map real slow. I am completely out of range of his attacks for a turn, however, he manages to get another movement on his turn to close the distance and take out one of my weaker units. Or a crucial staff heal fails and the unit is going to die in enemy phase only because this heal did not work. Its this random stuff on low percents that can completely ruin a long map that cannot be entirely countered.

In summary, the difficulty to me stems only from inadequate preparation and dumb luck.

[General Banzai]

Thracia's certainly more difficult than any other game I've played in the series.

Like hoooo, recruiting Xavier and getting the Member Card. Just inflating enemy stats can't compare to a well-designed challenge like that.

[riariadne]

Thracia's difficulty to me never really felt like because of super good design or anything. It just has a lot of situations that are just like "wow how was I supposed to expect that this is horseshit" and restart, then you don't fall for them again. More trial and error. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part I feel like the difficulty mostly applies only on the first run.