I Just Finished My First Playthrough of Mystery of the Emblem

[Interdimensional Observer]

Introduction:

At long last I successfully emulated something, and it was Mystery of the Emblem, what I imagine was the A Link to the Past or Final Fantasy IV of FE (FE4 I guess is VI and 5 to finish the metaphor would be V).

Obviously, one has to tempt one's expectations for such an antiquated game. Things weren't as fine tuned as they could be or would become in the gameplay department. And graphically, I know the Super Famicom/SNES could do more than these primitive maps visually speaking, but the battle animations were good and with some neat detailing. 

I didn't miss the Weapon Triangle, and unremovable weapon weight didn't bother me too much.  Same-turn reinforcements did bother me of course, since it forced me to look up where they might spawn (I played without using save states). But I found some of the game's quirks, like dismounting and deflated stats, quite likable.

 

Book 1 Comments:

Spoiler

Difficulty:

It isn't a total joke in difficulty, as usual the beginning is a little harder in an FE, and Book 1 was on the easier side at times, yet certainly not always. Snipers are at their most threatening ever here on the enemy side, fast, hit hard, and Crit = Skl means most allies stand a chance of being OHKO'ed by them, Pallies and Heroes also always pose that risk. I had a few lucky survivals, but my first reset b/c someone died came I believe with Castor when I misunderstood the doubling threshold here is 3 AS, and another came in Camus's battle when I misplaced Caeda (it was stupid to insist on having Tiki slaughter all the three Pallies and two Generals near the shops). I'm never used save states. Deflated HP and dodging alike means tankiness is relatively restrained here.

Michalis's chapter looked like a real doozy, and I lost once to the reinforcements, but I cheated there between a high Def Cain + Starsphere + Gradivus, a few dodges on a fort and some Def procs made him invincible to all but the Dragon Knights, whom he survived against, and Michalis himself. Although the thing is, this strat assuming you don't Ironman could be just as viable without RNG on the growths side giving you someone with high Def. Assuming you recruited Lorenz in the last chapter, one Warp use + Starsphere + Gradivus and his beefy 19 Def means he'll live, if not kill, so as long as Michalis doesn't Crit him and you've some Vulneraries or Physic to heal. Then, due to how the AI works, they'll just cluster around Lorenz and do nothing, becoming easily baited pickings for everyone else later for EXP. If Lorenz is parked on the Elfire Bishop fort, you can take all the time you want tanking and baiting. Camus's chapter on the other hand was fairly easy once you realize the Pallies around Camus don't actually move- that would've made it a heckuva lot worse.

 

Miscellaneous:

One problem for Book 1 was how some maps seemed a little too big and empty, and another is that they let you bring too many allies to a lot of fights.

The soundtrack isn't large for this, with the same map/battle themes from beginning to end save the last fight. But I did enjoy hearing of SD's pieces in an older rendition. Although Book 1 (also reused inconsistently in B2) Together We Ride is Together We CAR ALARM! CAR ALARM! here, it isn't good at all.

 

Unit-wise:

• I will say in that Ogma seems a bit overrated to me, he is too squishy at base, Navarre is even worse and I never got him a level, their high Spd is often superfluous. I did promote Ogma eventually (as in he didn't get to 10 until outside Altea), but I had Samson help fill in the Hero void later, who was fine.
• I preferred the Cavs, of whom I used the red, white, and green Big 3 to great effect, Cain being the best.
• Castor was decent, and Barst was great (until he like so many others fell to the Skl/Lck curse)/
• Wendel  was good on offense too even if he was busy healing most of the time, and Merric was a solid Mage who I think got blessed a bit.
• Draug's earlygame tanking was invaluable for a time, he even got two Def procs, but later I dumped him because low Mov and lacking offense.
• The fliers are rather weak in Book 1, Caeda is Caeda, but no Wing Spears hurt, despite some Silver Lance use. This said, they barely need levels to function when one needs them at Khadein, the only time when I think they're really required.
• Lorenz I fed both Secret Books, a Speedwing, a Seraph Robe, and a Goddess Icon to, and then let him tank the left side of the final fight with the Gradivus- he needed to do something glorious before he dies in the next great battle a year later.
• Book 1 Marth was a special kind of bad for a long while. He procced Str twice early on, and gained some Spd and Def too, but mostly he got Skill/Luck levelups for much of the game. I just tossed him some stat boosters and the Starsphere later to turn him into an actual warrior worthy of Falchion (which is worse than a Wyrmslayer outside of anti-Medeus properties sadly). Boots included of course- Marth had a hard time gaining EXP when I kept having to move him from Village to Village to Gate/Throne.

 

Book 2:

Spoiler

I went into Book 2 thinking the War of Heroes would be Marth's better half, which would only make the choice of Ninty to not release New Mystery abroad so much worse for Marth's reputation aboard. The reasons why I thought this would be the case is that it isn't remaking an NES game, IS had more resources and experience to create a better narrative, characters, music, map design and other aspects of the gameplay experience.

In the end, perhaps this was a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'll let others try to convince me it is or isn't, I do think Book 2/the War of Heroes is Marth's significantly better adventure. 

Since New Mystery never came aboard, the game's maps were new to me, the change of music was refreshing, and the new rendition of Together We Ride is actually very good. The much larger soundtrack is appreciated.

 

Plot:

Although the plot isn't anything but traditional, it is definitely snappier from the very start. The War of Shadows is milquetoast and Marth is so devoid of anything much of the time in Book 1’s rendition of it, to the point he is a hair short of a self-insert. Book 2 begins with suppressing a rebellion (although they conveniently kill off everyone but Lorenz and throw in bandits instead, IS wasn’t that gutsy) and Marth displaying some hesitancy to do so. He is a gentle idealist of course, but at least he speaks with personality- they even added a “Marth alarmed/serious” expression! Minerva too got one when saving Maria (but nobody else did).

I do wish Marth handled defying Lang a little better and just brushing off his threat of punishment to Altea, rather than reject killing the kids, Marth could’ve bought some time by lying and saying he would, only to secretly rescue them. Of course, Marth is too naive, idealistic, and unaware of exactly what has become of Hardin to do that, and as Jagen says at the end of the next chapter, it wouldn’t have made any difference- Hardin would’ve invaded anyhow.

And the crowd of non-Marth characters who appear in the plot even for just a moment is expanded. I like Julian and Palla interacting, since it reminds me of Jill speaking a word of nostalgia for Tormod in RD- two characters who have zero interactions in the first games in the second show some sign of having actually interacted offscreen.

I did love the Archanean lore too, even if I already had read and know pretty much of all it. It's sorta generic, but I sincerely really like it.

Originally, I didn't like the idea of Marth uniting the world, it seemed unrealistic, I mean I get Gra, Grust, and Archanea, but Macedon? Minerva could've kept that, and Khadein remained free so why not Macedon? This said, remembering that going inland on the mainland you find naught but infertile wilderness, and recalling the Roman Empire, I think it is reasonable now. Marth's unified Kingdom of Archanea is mostly islands and lands forming a circle around a sea- just like Rome! The only problem place I can see is the far east, namely Talys, but that is backwater, and I guess you could call it Britannia.

 

Difficulty and Character Usage:

Playing knowing what the various Starsphere fragments (and the Starsphere itself) do, plus the location of Iote’s Shield and a few other items, were certainly an upper hand which lowered the difficulty no doubt, but not entirely so, due to the lower stat caps I think. I got excessive in my obsession with passing around the Shards, I didn’t really need the massive stats everyone got in practice. Merric in particular became a coddled character. 

Difficulty in Book 2 is higher than in 1 I think if you exclude Shard abuse, which makes sense, since Book 1 seems more tutorial-esque, and since most people would play B1 before B2, by B2, they’re already acknowledgeable on the basics and therefore can be pushed more.

With regards to characters, the Star Shards do make anyone usable. But this game between dismounting to negate their weakness, an early Iote’s Shield, map design, and Palla and Catria, the game is massively Flier Emblem at points. Even more so it is than say Revelation or Tellius, where I felt fliers were quite good as well. Contrasts heavily with Book 1 where I think they’re pretty bad. 

Beyond the senior Whitewings, I used the three other final battle recruiters, all of whom were very good (Sirius is definitely worthy of his eliteness). I also used Linde, Tiki, Xane, Wendel through Anri’s Way, and Navarre, Ogma, Castor, and Cain. I did use Cecile until Cain showed up, since Rody (Roderick sounds too formal for a cute boy like him) and Luke got bad levels to start while she didn’t. Neither Cain nor Cecile really did much though, Sirius, the Crimson Dragoon, and Farore and Nayru just sucked all the oxygen out of the high mobility and general awesomeness room (Caeda being another nice victim). Gordin and Ryan were just too weak to bother training up, not that Castor ended up doing very much later on. Navarre is better in Book 2, but I again, I think Ogma is overrated.

 

Map Design:

As for map design. The first map was decent, the second was fine, save for that Lady Sword Thief! Ignore them and the map is a breeze, don't, and you'll feel the pains (I got by purely due to a lucky dodge with Catria when I winged it on a third/fourth try by dismounting her and killing the Thief on Turn 1, between the three Hunters and the right Draco you'll bait (I did not realize it wouldn't move to the fort), there is exactly enough firepower to 1 turn Catria dead). Chapter 3 is awful as I've heard its reputation to be, not helped by Palla having crappy levelups the whole time (which her growths then showed me is the norm for her).

Getting beyond these first three, I see that the War of Heroes generally went for quality over quantity, there were exceptions of massive reinforcements (Chapter 6) of course. I found Chapter 8 quite tight and a case in point of quality over quantity, they give you just about enough time to get Bantu and then get out. And fortunately Bantu isn’t too good so you can skip him, but he still has some uses I could see tanking Flying and Fire Dragons or all the Mages in the subsequent chapter. Minerva in Chapter 9 I also noticed you get maybe two turns of breathing space to get her and then get Marth to the throne before you must confront Astram. 

Chapter 7, the Thief horde, I think is the first real “easy” chapter, before the game applies the pressure again in the next two fights. And then of course you get the Gra chapter later, where you aren’t outright told you can recruit Sheena or how to do so, which is the real challenge here (and if you mess up, well Sheena isn’t worth much).

Anri’s Way, if you try going fast I can see it being quite hard due to Barbarian Atk and Breath Def/Res negation, but play it slow and it’s just empty maps loaded with EXP. I didn’t block the forts in the Flame Barrel battle, so I had the thrill of fleeing from Fire Breath and Devil Axes. I’d say this is where a dip in the difficulty begins, lasting until the C20-Medeus finale spike.

When you return to fighting conventional enemies, they’re fairly or pretty strong beyond Gra, and since they come at you and often have some measure of AS, they pose a different challenge from the Dragons. Weaker overall, but not devoid of threat. I don’t get the Thief reinforcements in Altea though, they just seem like free EXP. And I’m not sure how I’ll survive Aurelis in New Mystery, since 1-turning the village won’t be possible there sans Warp (which is not happening on Lunatic). 

Getting to the very last chapters, I think they went overboard with the enemy Bishops/Dark Mages and Dulam and Swarm and Meteor (and it was lazy they threw in a hundred Devil Axers). I had the Silence Staff, knew it was good, and saved it, as I did the Again Staff, but for someone who didn’t, well I can’t quite see how one could get through the final battles without deaths. To play blind, parts of Book 1 I can see being really hard and needing a couple playthroughs to get through.

Overall, I think I’d consider Book 2 to be superior to Book 1 in map design. Not always, and it has its issues, nor would I use the phrase “better map design” as my first way of describing it. It seems more often… “thematic” I think. By this, I mean the maps are designed around a certain idea- Ice Dragons in the Ice Temple fights, sparing weaklings in Gra, hunting as many Thieves as possible outside the Fane, a hasty flight at Chiasmir, being flanked in a mountain pass and winning by forcing a withdraw instead of fighting. 

Compared to Book 1, where maps are bland and traditional, Book 2 seem very vibrant and built around a certain inspiration. All FEs do this to various extents, but Book 2 seems very heavy on it after the first handful of chapters. I think this was intentional given Book 1 is included in the game, more of the exact same would be boring. Spice for another 23 battles was needed, and spice they provided plenty of.

 

Final Remarks:

The War of Shadows has its uses in this game, as a non-uncommon (see the Dragon Quest games) SNES remake of an NES game, as tutorial, the first half of Marth’s story, and just as more content. But the War of Heroes is where IS poured all their love and I think it shows.

The WoS seems in a way something they felt they were forced to do, but beyond gameplay changes, it received very few, too few, improvements to its narrative. Makes the WoS sorta pitiful actually, since it’s the victim of two soulless remakes now, while New Mystery it seems from afar actually (beyond any Kris criticisms) to have been made with more devotion and effort. Of course, Mystery being two games in one and memory space being an actual problem on in the 16-bit era, I can understand partly why they had to limit the WoS so.

My final conclusion?

Despite its datedness in many ways, I like Mystery of the Emblem. More so Book 2. Would I play it again? Maybe not, at least not right now. I managed to clear both Books in just 8 days, and need a break. But I enjoyed it.

 

 

P.S.: On Dragons: the Great and the Glut:

Spoiler

This game definitely has the best implementation of Dragon allies in all of FE!

Although I didn't actually use Bantu very much, just in four chapters in Book 1 including his intro and Tiki’s, and his recruitment chapter in Book 2. Also having read they take reduced damage from enemy Breath unlike anyone else, he was my bait and weakener for the hairy Sniper + Manakete duo outside Pales. 

They've the stats and range of an RD Dragon Laguz, without any hope of doubling, but Def negation allows for incredible damage and makes Bantu a good Jagen situations I can see. Dragonstone uses are actually on the plentiful side, looking here on SF, a minimum of 5 turns per transform (with the transformation ending at the start of your phase so there is nothing to fear, just use it again) is enough for most battles. The inability to double is fine when I think about it, since otherwise they’d be much too broken.

Tiki is really amazing too and doesn't actually really need much EXP to do her job due to how transformation works. Although I did have her fight a little in Gharnef's chapter, and then she slowly tanked the enemies coming over the mountains and the Mage Dragon reinforcements in the following battle after throwing her a Dracoshield and Seraph Robe, she then crippled the right enemies in the final battle, and then was Warped to clear out the enemies in the Throne room so Marth could kill Medeus quicker. Her Book 2 self is even better, with Mist Breath and I bought her a Magestone for mega tankiness (shame Mages won’t actually attack her in this form). 

I can see why when they invented Fae they overhauled the way Dragonstones work, since Tiki was arguably too good. But at the same time, I still don’t like how Fae and Myrrh function. You don’t have much freedom to use them, since their weapons have such limited uses and burn through them much quicker. Bantu was terribly hurt in the DS remakes, and Tiki also lost much of her goodness.

 

To speak of draconic enemies, Book 2 begins with the menace of Dracoknights, and ends in hordes of feral dragons. The War of Heroes is actually very unique in FE, since while dragons loom over much of the franchise, so rarely does one ever see them, particularly as enemies. The War of Heroes might be why even Binding Blade its progeny has far fewer Dragons (or so I think- Binding is the next thing on my FE playlist), there are so many Dragon enemies in Book 2, perhaps IS realized they overdid it. Certainly, they have never quite used them in such numbers ever again, barring what, BB’s Dragon Temple and "GOLDOA WILL MOVE!"? 

In a slight way, this could make Genealogy a breath of fresh air for those who played it at the time of its release. No more fighting dragons dragons dragons like Book 2, but dragons are still present, in a more removed context, with Loptyr and Forseti/Naga in a sense fighting a proxy war while they physically clash against each other elsewhere it can be guessed. Genealogy as a move away from an overemphasis on mythological beings and a movement towards human conflict emerges in my thoughts after finishing Mystery.

 

And that is all! I'm open to hearing what others have to say.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Emperor Hardin]

I've actually done a Bantu run before, he can turn out pretty well, especially with the Cancer star sphere. 50% growth is nothing to sneeze at!

Personally I'd like to see an FE game with several maps of all dragon enemies.

Though as versatile as they in this, they still can't do everything human units can do. They'd need a staff equivalent for one.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Glad you enjoyed it, Mystery and its remake is far and away my favorite game in the series

 

That said you probably could try Gordin if you revisit the game sometime later. This game's incarnation of Gordin is considered the best Archer the series ever had, although you COULD not use him in favor of waiting for Jeorge who is very much Gordin immediate power edition. The trick is to abuse the Dragons early in the game for EXP using effective damage, give him some orbs shard for the 5 level you need to raise him up, and when time comes Orion Bolt him immediately. When Parthia arrives Gordin essentially got Veteran AND aptitude. Remember that Archanea duology had a very unique implementation of their Archers where Archers had low base, while Sniper had high base so their stats got an insane spike when you promote them

He and i think Midia is the characters thats often touted as underrated relative to how good they are in this game(Midia case being he's hilariously superior to Sirius in the few chapters she get her full power due to having Lady Sword)

 

And yeah Mystery had surprisingly strong pace, in a sense that the game starts heavy and kind of stays that way. As you note the very first easy map is Chapter 7(which ironically become one HELL of a map in FE12 go figure). In fact FE12 kind of mess with the "difficulty" so much that once you understand the game, Anri's Way(the first dragon map) is arguably the first easy map in the game. I think the most memorable moment of Mystery is when you manage to beat Lang, who is very much the starter villain of the game, got some confidence boost beating the fane of raman, only for the game to sucker punch you at Chiasmir with Hardin-Astram sandwhich.

FE12 kinda ruined Dragons

 

WRT to story theme i think Mystery sits in an interesting position

While most Fire Emblem is heavy on mythology, and human faction conflict, i dare say Mystery is VERY heavy in personal conflict. Consider this: the impetus of the conflict of Mystery is without a doubt Hardin's Jealousy towards Marth, which is somewhat directly caused by the way the Archanean treated him. On the flipside Marth's prime motivation after the revelation in the mid game is to save Hardin, and the end of the conflict comes from Hardin having a confession to Marth. The very end of the game is resolved through having a relative talk to the priestess to disable Medeus self revival ability even

In a sense, while its true Mystery is heavy on mythological aspect of the series, with no less than 1/3 of the game being all about it. It felt... thrown in? In a sense that it serves as the vehicle for the personal conflict to be solved. In fact Minerva and Michalis is purely absent from such a thing. 

[Emperor Hardin]

19 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Glad you enjoyed it, Mystery and its remake is far and away my favorite game in the series

Love Mystery and its remake as well, both have their charms.

19 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

This game's incarnation of Gordin is considered the best Archer the series ever had, although you COULD not use him in favor of waiting for Jeorge who is very much Gordin immediate power edition. The trick is to abuse the Dragons early in the game for EXP using effective damage, give him some orbs shard for the 5 level you need to raise him up, and when time comes Orion Bolt him immediately. 

Wasn't aware of that, I tended to use Ryan and Kashim/Castor.

19 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Remember that Archanea duology had a very unique implementation of their Archers where Archers had low base, while Sniper had high base so their stats got an insane spike when you promote them

Archers had the same 5 movement as Armor Knights, but Snipers got 7 movement making them among the most mobile units indoors.

Funfact, I've been considering doing a FE3 hack where Knights to Generals get a similar movement boost.

19 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

FE12 kinda ruined Dragons

It really feels like only enemy dragons and manaketes can be good in the DS remakes.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

25 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Love Mystery and its remake as well, both have their charms.

Wasn't aware of that, I tended to use Ryan and Kashim/Castor.

Archers had the same 5 movement as Armor Knights, but Snipers got 7 movement making them among the most mobile units indoors.

Funfact, I've been considering doing a FE3 hack where Knights to Generals get a similar movement boost.

It really feels like only enemy dragons and manaketes can be good in the DS remakes.

DS remakes enemy dragons is fine, i find them a highlight due to how rare they are as an enemy usually and interesting approach to fight them. Late game Dragon is kind of.... hard to say because well stats is ridiculously high

 

But DSFE understandably removed the entire Dragon mechanic of FE3, so the only utility it maintain is the boring took 0 magic damage ones(which isnt that big of a deal since even base divinestone makes a joke out of magic damage iirc) and locks them out from LM sadly

Edited February 28, 2019 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Emperor Hardin]

Just now, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

DS remakes enemy dragons is fine, i find them a highlight due to how rare they are as an enemy usually. Late game Dragon is kind of.... hard to say because well stats is ridiculously high

The DS remakes had a lot of dragons.

Just now, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

But DSFE understandably removed the entire Dragon mechanic of FE3, so the only utility it maintain is the boring took 0 magic damage ones(which isnt that big of a deal since even base divinestone makes a joke out of magic damage iirc) and locks them out from LM sadly

1 range Dragonstones was definitely a step back, I feel they should've stayed 1-2 range.

Dragonstones being used whenever a unit attacks or is attacked really hurt player Manaketes, even increased nearly doubling the usage of dragonstones from 18 to 30 didn't help enough.

[Hawkwing]

Congrats! I remember I starting playing Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 a couple of years ago using an online emulator, but never managed to finish it due to my computer accidentally deleting all my emulator save files, and then the website crapped out so I couldn't attempt to replay it (frustrating, but that was a risk I knew about going in). I had fun with the game, especially since it was a nice change of pace after playing Awakening and Shadows of Valentia, even if I do admit that I eventually got bored. As intriguing as fighting an enemy that was mostly on even terms with you was, it got tiring when I realized I was pretty much doing the same strategy of "you attack the enemy, they attack you, retreat that unit to heal up while replacing them with someone else. Repeat until map is won" with a different variance every map.

Good job on analyzing the difficulty, map design, and character usage. They were good insights that I mostly agree with from the little I played, and now I'm interested in seeing or trying out Book 2 after reading this. About the only thing you didn't really go over and what I'm most curious about is how the game handles permadeath.

I remember in Book 1 that there were several times when a unit died and I didn't bother to reset to save them because another unit already fulfilled their role yet better, and this was before I did my first Ironman of Awakening. I know that people have said that the game is designed to be ironmanned, where the earlier units are better than ones you get later, and I agree, but I spun that around to mean that you have to seriously think about whether to bring in your best units and risk them dying, or a weaker unit where they have a higher chance of not making it though, but will become stronger if they do. I found this kind of mindset intriguing, and it's partially a reason I want to try out Shadow Dragon as I'd like see if its infamous gaiden chapters were perhaps a flawed attempt at expanding upon this design philosophy. I'm also curious if Book 2 continued this trend.

That aside, I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and you've re-piqued my interest in looking into the game again.

[Interdimensional Observer]

13 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

While most Fire Emblem is heavy on mythology, and human faction conflict, i dare say Mystery is VERY heavy in personal conflict.

Your right in that it is called the War of Heroes for a reason. The primary conflict is Marth vs. Hardin, with Anri's Way an interruption in the flow of this story, and the true final chapters a somewhat separate storyline connected to Anri's Way. The fact that Gharnef's role isn't stated until Chapter 14 means if someone played blind, it wouldn't be until Chapter 8 they realize Hardin hasn't simply changed, he's gone and been corrupted. So until that point, the conflict would appear wholly human. And Marth uses his concerned face when confronting Hardin to really hone into the drama between the two.

 

13 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

He and i think Midia is the characters thats often touted as underrated relative to how good they are in this game(Midia case being he's hilariously superior to Sirius in the few chapters she get her full power due to having Lady Sword)

Initially I questioned whether the Lady Sword was worth the headache to get. Weak bandits don't need it, and eventually they'll vanish entirely from the game- or so I thought. Then i got to Anri's Way, and Minerva taught me how fun OHKOing Barbarians are. C13 Barbarians have 35 HP and 11 Def, the Lady Sword has 12 base Mt, 36 effective, so with just 10 Str, any woman can terminate a Barbarian in a single blow, and this still works on the penultimate chapter. Final Barbarians are too tanky for this, but nobody can OHKO them without a crit, the Lady Sword can still ORKO them, even a base Str Caeda can (never mind she's being OHKO'ed in return), the menfolk can't do that even with capped Str and Mercurius. 

In other words, the Lady Sword was absolutely worth it. And this explains why New Mystery turned it into just an E-ranked Silver Sword.

 

2 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

About the only thing you didn't really go over and what I'm most curious about is how the game handles permadeath.

Ironmanning New Mystery on Lunatic sounds like a lesson in "how to not get past the Prologue" from what little I know. Ironman original FE3 Book 2? 

Certainly possible I think. Provided you know what the various Starsphere Shards boost and use them, anybody can get high stats eventually. If someone is slow, just give them Libra for +40% Spd growth, and you'll still have room for another two or three, so throw Leo in the same inventory for +50% Str and you have doubling powerhouse eventually. You start getting the Shards in Chapter 3 and have them all by Chapter 12, they don't get merged until Chapter 14, so you've time to abuse them. And even afterwards you have the universal +30% boost of the restored Starsphere until the very last fights. You get the majority of the characters by Chapter 10, so they have at least five chapters of Shard use.

It helps that the only stats that remain totally useful from beginning to end are HP, Str, Skill, Luck, and Weapon Level. Def and Spd don't matter against Dragons, and the Barbarians they are often accompanied by are also 0 AS, as are most enemy Bishops and Mages I think. Not to say Spd and Def are worthless, Heroes packing 27 Atk and 15 AS are real frightening. Res is always good to have, but the problem is gaining any significant quantity on anyone is difficult.

Dragons are also universally not too bad to kill, just have enough HP to not be OHKO'ed, pack the appropriate tome, use a Dragon Killer/Wyrmslayer, and if you're a Bow unit, Flying Dragons are plentiful enough treats for you. Draug is probably the only unit who has a universally bad time with Dragons, since he can't use Swords so no Wyrmslayer, no Bows, no Tomes, and his high base Def is undercut by Breath ignoring it completely.

With the help of the Stars, the only units who I think are totally bad are Roshea, and maybe Sheena and Est. Although you could make the case Roshea is better than Abel in the final fights due to much higher HP, the only real help against Dragons and Magic, neither of which need Abel's higher Spd to fight. And Sheena and Est only suffer from being Ests, baby them and they'll still be amazing.

Sans Star usage, Rickard and Samuel are bad, Warren is slow, and Arran is one of the worst Jagens ever, but otherwise, I don't think anyone is horribly gimped even if you lose your clearly better options in the same category.

[Hawkwing]

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Certainly possible I think. Provided you know what the various Starsphere Shards boost and use them, anybody can get high stats eventually. If someone is slow, just give them Libra for +40% Spd growth, and you'll still have room for another two or three, so throw Leo in the same inventory for +50% Str and you have doubling powerhouse eventually. You start getting the Shards in Chapter 3 and have them all by Chapter 12, they don't get merged until Chapter 14, so you've time to abuse them. And even afterwards you have the universal +30% boost of the restored Starsphere until the very last fights. You get the majority of the characters by Chapter 10, so they have at least five chapters of Shard use.

I see. So it takes the "there are ways to bring other units up to speed in case another one falls" route in Book 2. Interesting to know. I'm curious if that thought process was retained in the remake.

[Seafarer]

Interesting that I see this now, given that I'm about finished Book 1 myself.

I had a different experience to you, though. I ran with my FE1 team of Cain/Abel/Hardin on horse, Ogma and Nabarl on foot, and Shiida, and Ogma is hilariously good. As in, capped everything bar HP/Skill/Res at level 20/11. Nabarl was slower off the ground due to lower Def, and the horses were actually relatively underwhelming by comparison. I also do think that the difficulty is a joke. The Sniper/Fire Dragon combo that someone mentioned can actually be split up no trouble, and I usually had maps in the bag well before reinforcements started to appear.

I found that Tiki plays quite like Myrrh - save her for the last few maps, where she's effective against a chunk of the enemies, and let her rip.

Merric is godly. I used him to kill earlygame Dracoknights - a lot of them have Javelins, so I just planted him at the edge of their range and equipped Excalibur. Worked on Michalis, too, Iote's Shield notwithstanding. Then, of course, he 9 % crit Gharnef, which was very satisfying.

I'll finish Book 1 tonight or tomorrow, then Mystery will have to take a break while I run through Shadow Dragon 6 times (ew), but I've quite enjoyed it.