FE3 or FE4?

[sirmola]

About the dead lords, I don't think you can pass through to the castle you have to capture for Julia without them attacking you. I'm pretty sure I tried that.

You very much can. You can't pass right by brahara without agroing them, but you can easily travel north of the forest that is north of brahara.

True, it doesn't. But it's definitely harder than any chapter I had to face in FE4. I was strictly against using prepromotes when I played the ship, which made things frustrating enough. But in hindsight, it would probably have been easy with them, but that's no fun.

True, but dificulty of a game is generaly defined as average dificulty, not the difficulty of the hardest part. (and to tell you the truth, chapter 11 was not all that hard for me compaired to, say, geting everythin on the reusten chapter

I don't recall having it hard at Blume or Miletos, but I remember Musar from chapter 9. His squad is very powerful and he himself has a Tornado, the most broken normal weapon in the game. I had Corple as Levin's son and he wasn't that great at using Holsety sadly.

Musar is also quite difficult. Pursuit, tornado, and decent speed results in him doubling maybe half of your characters.

Edited May 7, 2015 by sirmola

[Hero]

I say play FE4 all the way! What a great little game for 1996. Like others have said the story is quite possibly the neatest in the FE franchise, and the gameplay differences that set it apart from the rest of the series were, in my experience at least, almost all positive ones. Yes, the chapters take a long time to complete, but on the flip side there are only 12 of them. Go into the game with just a little bit of patience for its age and the clunkiness of oldschool translation patches, and you'll be gritting your teeth in anger that there isn't more in no time. The rosy lenses of nostalgia are strong with this one, but they wouldn't be if it wasn't an engaging game to start with.

I think that saying it's easier than FE8 is preposterous. Unlike FE8, the difficulty starts amping up right away in the first three chapters, and you're going to have to do a little bit of creative thinking to save your first few characters. It's true that avenues for abuse open up pretty quick, but then doesn't every FE game have its potential for abuse, and FE8 even moreso? Besides, building an overpowered army can be fun sometimes, especially on a first playthrough. And if you play the game totally blind, I think you'll find it's one of the toughest in the series.

FE3's another good one, and a highlight of the series in its own right, but others were not kidding when they said it feels clunky. Also, the first half of it isn't going to feel new at all if you've played FE1 or FE11 (still don't understand why book 2 wasn't included in that game). It pains me to admit it, but I never mustered the effort to finish it. On the contrary, every chapter in FE4 felt like a treat.

[PuffPuff]

FE3

It's much more historical than 4 and it is strange that it takes place after Geneology. Difficulty is actually much more than 4.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Pan_Chan

[Baldrick]

Ephraim's route will likely be tackled on the second playthrough, when the player has more knowledge of strategies to overcome difficult chapters. Granted, I don't remember any in-game indication you should take Eirika's route first, but anyone who's played it before will tell you to do that.

Anyway, the sleep staff user in FE4 chapter 2 is much more difficult than any you encounter in FE8 because

1. You don't have a Restore staff.

2. It has infinite shots, so you can't bait him into breaking it.

3. You can't rescue sleeping units to safety.

[GrySun]

Ephraim's route will likely be tackled on the second playthrough, when the player has more knowledge of strategies to overcome difficult chapters. Granted, I don't remember any in-game indication you should take Eirika's route first, but anyone who's played it before will tell you to do that.

Anyway, the sleep staff user in FE4 chapter 2 is much more difficult than any you encounter in FE8 because

1. You don't have a Restore staff.

2. It has infinite shots, so you can't bait him into breaking it.

3. You can't rescue sleeping units to safety.

You mean the boss guy sitting on his castle? His army was easily baited closer and killed out of his range, and then move all of your units into him and kill him. The hardest part of that chapter is getting the bargain ring as you really have to be fast. Besides, sleeping units can still dodge attacks for some reason.

Edited May 23, 2015 by GrySun

[Baldrick]

There aren't many cases where turtling doesn't work. But it's a lot harder to break through quickly compared to the chapter vs Vigarde in FE8.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

I prefer Mystery. I can see why FE4 is the hot stuff (and obviously I enjoy a good Sigurd), but classic MotE is so hard to beat for being two games and the classic story.

I am also one of the few who really likes the mechanics in that game. Everyone has the same class caps (making class almost irrelevant other than weapons, both good and bad), but being capped out doesn't make that character invincible so careful strategy is needed throughout the game. I also love mounting/dismounting, and I appreciate that characters aren't automatically handicapped if they don't have a horse due to huge maps.