Dificulty curiosity Easy vs Normal

[Spectraman]

Hey guys I just wanted to know if there is a difference between easy and normal mode. Since this is my first playthough of path of radiance, for every fire emblem game I always play for the story first then the gameplay, but in this case I don't want my playthrough to be too easy.

[Augestein]

Easy and Normal I'm pretty sure the differences are EXP gains all around. Just stick with normal. Easy is insanely easy. Like... To the point that the game will get boring. Hard is still pretty easy as well.

[Parrhesia]

If it isn't one of your first couple of FEs, you'd want to play on Hard. It's technically the game's Normal mode - the original Hard was inexplicably removed from the international release.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Parrhesia

[Lady Sansa]

Even hard mode is easier than every fe except maybe sacred stones. Major difference is you get more bexp on lower difficulties.

[MCProductions]

For a first time player, I recommend Normal Mode, Hard Mode is technically still REALLY easy, but I just have a personal rule against playing the highest difficulty in a FE game so...

I know POR's highest difficulty technically isn't it's highest difficulty, but my rule still applies

[EricaofRenais]

I would go with normal like others have said because PoR is the easiest FE I have ever played.

[Snowy_One]

The primary difference is in EXP gains. IIRC easy gives you a higher amount per-kill than normal. There are some different enemy placements as well but, in general, the main difference is EXP gains.

Hard also affects what items are avalible in the shops and when though I forget if it was slanted towards making it easier to cope with stronger enemies or harder to accentuate the difficulty.

[Lord Kyuubi]

PoR's localisation made a real mess of its difficulty settings to be honest. 'Normal' is effectively the game's easy mode (the actual 'easy' just being the same with more experience) - it's got toned down enemies and fewer complications compared to the so-called 'Difficult' mode, which in practice is your normal/moderate difficulty. Difficult actually has quite a few pronounced gameplay differences, a few of which do reflect on the narrative, so actually I'd wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone playing for story.

And to be honest, PoR's just not very hard anyway. Except perhaps the endgame on Difficult, which does have a few troublesome enemies, I'd say the hardest chapter by far is actually Chapter 4, which is quite the difficulty spike at the time, but it soon dies down again. From that point on, it pretty much just gets easier and easier, until the midgame when practically all of your units will be able to one-round almost any enemy, as well as dodging or taking minimal damage from most attacks. As long as you have a little experience in FE, you shouldn't really have much trouble with PoR.

Which is a bit of a shame, honestly, I'd have liked a go at Maniac mode, but ah well.