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FE games by difficulty, without grinding?


Fukinknobhead
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Sure, why not? Assuming easiest difficulty for games that let you choose, and considering arenas to be "grinding": 9, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14B, 14R, 14C, 10, 6. From easiest to hardest. And I don't know any other games well enough to accurately gauge.

Path of Radiance loads you with too much battle and bonus experience, and your starting squad are all high to top tiers. Plus you can save abuse bonus exp for better level up unlike RD, though I'm not sure whether to consider this exploit "grinding" or not. 7's lyn mode is notoriously the easiest ten consecutive chapters of any Fire Emblem game, but the game eventually begins hitting you with Fog of War, and an actually challenging finale. Sacred Stones' easy mode is the same as normal mode except for tutorial text present up to chapter 9, the actual enemies you face aren't changed. And the game starts hitting you with sleep and berserk staves pretty early. The finale, like 7s is a massive step up from everything previous as well. Awakening is moreso easy because of pair up rather than the ability to grind, but even experienced players lose units once they try to steer clear of the Robin and Chrom power hour. Awakening's map design never poses a challenge, but the enemy stats get really good real fast. In 7 and 8, you never need units with AS higher than 10 to 15 by late game, in Awakening you're past that point by the second half of the game.

All of Fates is in the same ballpark. Definitely harder than awakening now that enemies dual strike you. Birthright is the easiest since simple rout chapters don't force you to use any but the best of your units, like Ryoma. Conquest and revelation are a hard call as their map design consistently challenges you to try better strategies. Revelation also has totally unbalanced unit recruitment, but getting all the royals plus a better Yato blade makes it just easier than Conquest in my opinion. Radiant Dawn and 6 are both hard for me to remember because I only played each of them once, about five years ago. 10's dawn brigade chapters and its finale are definitely highlights. And 6 just throws everything it can think of at you with very few viable units in the early game and a terrible lord that has to physically seize every throne.

 

Edited by Gustavos
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Going to ignore higher difficulty levels, just for the sake of this not being a mile of text breaking down each game and their difficulty options. I'll go by whatever the default is, or "Normal", for games with difficulty options.

5, Conquest, 10, 6, Revelations, 11, Birthright, 7, 12, 4, 2, 13, 9, 8.

5 is just notoriously brutal with how it lets you handle your army, with Fatigue keeping you from spamming your strongest units, really brutal enemy placements, a lot of varied objectives(Tend to lean towards Escape and Defend, which are usually the hardest objective types in other games), even Clerics and Priests can fuck you up with status staves. List goes on.

Conquest is similar, but a bit less harsh on the players.

In 10, the early chapter maps are brutal, and the amount of mechanics(Like height) that come into play infrequently you can easily end up misjudging. Once Ike shows up it lessens in difficulty, but it's still harder than most.

6 is another case where the game is just mean to you at times. Special mention to promotion items being as infrequent as they are, which can really lower your army's effectiveness, and Roy needing to be babied for 95% of the game.

Revelations can be a bit tricky, with really unconventional map design and enemy placements. It can end up catching you off guard. Not quite as much as Conquest, though, which is why it's lower.

11's main hurdle is really just testing your patience. If you can deal with the pace, it's not actually that difficult.

Birthright. It's just a harder Awakening. A lot more straightforward than Rev and Con, but enemy units aren't pushovers.

7 is a bit on the easier side, depending on the route you go. Hector's route(The canon route as far as I'm concerned) has some tricky maps added, and beefier enemies. Nothing particularly difficult, but you can lose quite a few units if you're not careful.

12. It'd feel a lot like FE7 is it wasn't for Kris. Kris swings the difficulty to your favor quite a bit. Oddly enough, the most difficult maps are all in the prologue. Still some tricky situations later on, but again, not that noteworthy either way when it comes to difficulty.

4's difficulty is weird, as it can solely depend on how you breed(Or don't) the kid units. Gen 1's not particularly tricky(Chapter 1 can be difficult with getting Ayra and Dew, and chapter 3 has Tailtyu and Claude in a bad spot), and Sigurd trivializes most of it. The difficulty tends to come in gen 2, but you can make kids so disgustingly strong that they can end up trivializing that, too. I feel like anybody going into FE4 knows what they're going into, and the nightmare scenario(Sub runs) is something you have to actively try to achieve.

2's difficult to classify. Alm trivializes a lot due to how disgustingly strong he is compared to all of your other units, but the game is also super unbalanced. However, it's unbalanced in both directions, so it's a toss up. You can fuck up a map royally, then replay it and completely blow through it.

13 is a cakewalk. There are a few spikes in the mid game, but assuming you're playing on normal, there's really nothing you won't be prepared for. Pair-up is super unbalanced in your army's favor, and by the time difficulty spikes start hitting, your units should be all supported up to make Pair-up even better. However, it has some tricky paralogues, and ambush units that appear out of nowhere.

9's also a cakewalk. It's a bit harder throughout than Awakening is, I'd say, but it doesn't throw any curve balls at you, and nothing quite as dumb as ambush units that appear in the middle of maps out of nowhere. I might put this one ahead of 13, but they're pretty close in my head.

8's just... I can't think of any hard chapters in that game besides Ephraim's sweet boat cruise, and even that's not THAT hard. It feels like enemy growths were cut by about 25% somewhere during development. After a while, even without grinding, they'll be of no threat to you unless you decide to start training Trainee Ross in chapter 15 or something like that.

Edited by Slumber
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48 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Sure, why not? Assuming easiest difficulty for games that let you choose, and considering arenas to be "grinding": 9, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14B, 14R, 14C, 10, 6. From easiest to hardest. And I don't know any other games well enough to accurately gauge.

my one playthrough of RD was on easy mode and i can confidently say

if you're assuming easiest difficulty for all of them 10 should be near the absolute easiest

part 1 is the only one that's remotely challenging on easy mode, elincia's chapters are all pretty easy on easy mode and most of the enemies the greil mercs face have a low chance of doing 0 damage to them

and eventually you start getting guys like tibarn etc. and it just gets kinda pathetic to the point that most enemy phases will just be like 8 minutes of enemy attacks missing or doing 0 damage

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1 hour ago, unique said:

my one playthrough of RD was on easy mode and i can confidently say

if you're assuming easiest difficulty for all of them 10 should be near the absolute easiest

part 1 is the only one that's remotely challenging on easy mode, elincia's chapters are all pretty easy on easy mode and most of the enemies the greil mercs face have a low chance of doing 0 damage to them

and eventually you start getting guys like tibarn etc. and it just gets kinda pathetic to the point that most enemy phases will just be like 8 minutes of enemy attacks missing or doing 0 damage

Oh, is Easy that much easier? I remember getting tired of resetting near the end of Part 1 when I was going through on Normal, then I started the game over on Easy. I figured it was only easy for me because I knew what to expect from the hardest chapters of the game. While I may not know Radiant Dawn that well now, I certainly know how much of a breeze 7 and 8 are both from recent playthroughs and watching newer, 3DS players tackle them without losing any units.

Edited by Gustavos
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Hardest difficulty, excluding lunatic+ and lunatic reverse:

New Mystery of the Emblem's Lunatic >>>>> Conquest Lunatic > Shadow Dragon H5 > Binding Blade Hard > Radiant Dawn Hard > Blazing Blade Hector Hard Mode >>>>>>>>> Birthright and Revelation Lunatic > Awakening Lunatic > Path of Radiance Maniac Mode (Japan only) > Genealogy of the Holy War's only mode > Sacred Stones's hard > Path of Radiance's Hard

haven't played 1, 2, 3 and 5, but i've beaten all of the modes i listed.

new mystery on lunatic is far harder than everything else. The gap between hhm and anything below it is also big. 

Edited by Nobody
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4 hours ago, Slumber said:

Going to ignore higher difficulty levels, just for the sake of this not being a mile of text breaking down each game and their difficulty options. I'll go by whatever the default is, or "Normal", for games with difficulty options.

5, Conquest, 10, 6, Revelations, 11, Birthright, 7, 12, 4, 2, 13, 9, 8.

5 is just notoriously brutal with how it lets you handle your army, with Fatigue keeping you from spamming your strongest units, really brutal enemy placements, a lot of varied objectives(Tend to lean towards Escape and Defend, which are usually the hardest objective types in other games), even Clerics and Priests can fuck you up with status staves. List goes on.

Conquest is similar, but a bit less harsh on the players.

In 10, the early chapter maps are brutal, and the amount of mechanics(Like height) that come into play infrequently you can easily end up misjudging. Once Ike shows up it lessens in difficulty, but it's still harder than most.

6 is another case where the game is just mean to you at times. Special mention to promotion items being as infrequent as they are, which can really lower your army's effectiveness, and Roy needing to be babied for 95% of the game.

Revelations can be a bit tricky, with really unconventional map design and enemy placements. It can end up catching you off guard. Not quite as much as Conquest, though, which is why it's lower.

11's main hurdle is really just testing your patience. If you can deal with the pace, it's not actually that difficult.

Birthright. It's just a harder Awakening. A lot more straightforward than Rev and Con, but enemy units aren't pushovers.

7 is a bit on the easier side, depending on the route you go. Hector's route(The canon route as far as I'm concerned) has some tricky maps added, and beefier enemies. Nothing particularly difficult, but you can lose quite a few units if you're not careful.

12. It'd feel a lot like FE7 is it wasn't for Kris. Kris swings the difficulty to your favor quite a bit. Oddly enough, the most difficult maps are all in the prologue. Still some tricky situations later on, but again, not that noteworthy either way when it comes to difficulty.

4's difficulty is weird, as it can solely depend on how you breed(Or don't) the kid units. Gen 1's not particularly tricky(Chapter 1 can be difficult with getting Ayra and Dew, and chapter 3 has Tailtyu and Claude in a bad spot), and Sigurd trivializes most of it. The difficulty tends to come in gen 2, but you can make kids so disgustingly strong that they can end up trivializing that, too. I feel like anybody going into FE4 knows what they're going into, and the nightmare scenario(Sub runs) is something you have to actively try to achieve.

2's difficult to classify. Alm trivializes a lot due to how disgustingly strong he is compared to all of your other units, but the game is also super unbalanced. However, it's unbalanced in both directions, so it's a toss up. You can fuck up a map royally, then replay it and completely blow through it.

13 is a cakewalk. There are a few spikes in the mid game, but assuming you're playing on normal, there's really nothing you won't be prepared for. Pair-up is super unbalanced in your army's favor, and by the time difficulty spikes start hitting, your units should be all supported up to make Pair-up even better. However, it has some tricky paralogues, and ambush units that appear out of nowhere.

9's also a cakewalk. It's a bit harder throughout than Awakening is, I'd say, but it doesn't throw any curve balls at you, and nothing quite as dumb as ambush units that appear in the middle of maps out of nowhere. I might put this one ahead of 13, but they're pretty close in my head.

8's just... I can't think of any hard chapters in that game besides Ephraim's sweet boat cruise, and even that's not THAT hard. It feels like enemy growths were cut by about 25% somewhere during development. After a while, even without grinding, they'll be of no threat to you unless you decide to start training Trainee Ross in chapter 15 or something like that.

I find the defense chapter pretty hard.

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Quote

New Mystery of the Emblem's Lunatic >>>>> Conquest Lunatic > Shadow Dragon H5 > Binding Blade Hard > Radiant Dawn Hard > Blazing Blade Hector Hard Mode >>>>>>>>> Birthright and Revelation Lunatic > Awakening Lunatic > Path of Radiance Maniac Mode (Japan only) > Genealogy of the Holy War's only mode > Sacred Stones's hard > Path of Radiance's Hard

I find FE10's HM is a cakewalk compared to FE13's lunatic I never ever could beat.

Also can't do a list since I only played 6-10 on the highest difficulty.

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For games I've played (6-Fates) on all their hardest English modes (excluding Lunatic+ or Lunatic Reverse):

New Mystery H3 > Conquest Lunatic > Sword of Seals Hard  > Shadow Dragon H5 > Radiant Dawn Hard > Awakening Lunatic >  Revelations Lunatic > Blazing Sword Hector Hard Mode >  Birthright Lunatic >  Sacred Stones Hard >  Path of Radiance Hard

 

Edited by -Cynthia-
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1 hour ago, Alisa Reinford said:

I find FE10's HM is a cakewalk compared to FE13's lunatic I never ever could beat.

Also can't do a list since I only played 6-10 on the highest difficulty.

the trick to beat lunatic awakening is using frederick to feed robin kills in the prologue. From then on, you can either use robin to feed kills to other units until they can survive on their own (which is somewhat challenging), or just use him to destroy the game, which makes it laughably easy, being literally only skip turn after chapter 3. I'm considering the former here, though, otherwise it would be on the very bottom of the list, i can beat it in under 3 hours.

the game tries to be hard by throwing strong units at you, but as soon as you get a strong unit yourself, which you can by chapter 1, it becomes a joke, due to how broken pair up is, and how quick units get exp.

Edited by Nobody
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I see.
So that means it becomes more or less a solo of the avatar.

My issue is that I had no idea how to survive the early turns of chapter 2 since you can't cover your fragile units.
Chapter 3 was also a pain in the ass. (cancelled my attempt there)



Anyways my list of the finished parts on the hardest difficulty
FE5 > FE10 > FE6 HM > FE7 HHM > FE4 > FE8 > FE9 (never could play maniac)

Also FE6 and FE7 hard modes aren't really hard.

  • FE6 has a rough earlygame especially chapter 4 + 7.
  • FE7 has a bullshit chapter with keeping Zephiel alive which is luckbased, and the chapter against Linus / Lloyd with the masses of magic users is kinda tricky.
  • FE10's difficulty is unbalanced. DB's chapters especially 1-3 and 1-F are pretty tough. 3-6 is the hardest chapter in the game if you don't play it defensively. The GM's and CK's chapters are really easy.
  • FE5 isn't hard either, just beginner-unfriendly due to its mechanics.


 

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FE1 is without a doubt the easiest game in the series, the reason no one mentions it is because no one has played it. The game defecates you money and good weapons, Marth breaks the game, Warp breaks it even further, and the enemies are pathetic. The "hardest" chapters of the game can be trivialized by Marth and magic casters.

Sacred Stones HM is a cakewalk. The only chapter I considered hard was the Phantom Ship where I RNG abused to kill the gargoyles fast and the next chapter with the Nosferatu druid and mage ambush spawns.

 

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