Thoughts on FE12

[JimmyBeans]

Some time ago I completed my first play through of this game and I sat on my overall thoughts for a while until now, in which I would like to share them. If you could, share your opinion on FE12 as well as I would like to hear what others feel about it.

Since my favorite game is FE11, I was really excited to play this game and see where the story goes, and while I was spoiled mildly I went in mostly blind. Because of my ego and having played Shadow Dragon on H5 a lot I chose lunatic on this game for my first run which turned out to be a BIG MISTAKE because the game is absurdly hard, probably on par with conquest until I figured out how terrible the AI is and how easy they are to abuse, and even then it was still very painful.

Gameplay

Spoiler

I'm not knocking it down for how hard it was because I did that myself, and even with the absurd stats on the enemies I found myself really enjoying some levels, I felt like a lot of chapters were solved by a series of small things and I enjoyed thinking about how to let myself out of every encounter, every stat point could be used to it's highest potential and 1 vulnerary could save the lives of many people. The amount of stress I felt was equaled with it feeling very rewarding and I enjoyed all chapters except for 3, Anri's way (dragons are boring to fight for me), 19, and 20x.

I still like FE11's gameplay better though..... Mainly because the enemy density is less. Shadow Dragon maps have a smaller number of strong enemies (on harder difficulties of course), and the challenge is clearing them efficiently before the reinforcements overwhelm you, or if you play slower using your forces to survive the onslaught as best you can, also in FE11 a lot of the enemies run at you early, giving you enough time to figure you out how you want to setup.

FE12 on the other hand has A LOT of stationary enemies on the map, with reinforcements as well so your choices are either A) Chew through a ton of enemies at a quick pace, or B) Chew through 2 tons of enemies at a slow pace. And while there is a lot more to do compared to FE11, the maps became a lot more tedious because of it, even when I tried to play fast. But as much as I find stationary enemies boring, my biggest credit to FE12 is they intentionally place the units in spots to trick you all the time, making sure you looked at everyone's equipment and stats was very important at all times, and it made baiting and switching not a simple task and I really enjoyed that about this game.

Story

Spoiler

For what the source material was, they did a really good job if you ask me, and most of the problems I have with it can be pointed towards the fact that it's obvious that FE1 wasn't intended to have a sequel when it was first made.

1 concern is that they bring back pretty much every important antagonist from the original, and while they were cool in their own way it takes away from Shadow Dragon if you ask me. Some examples are...

-Michalis gets forgiven, and because he is a better ruler he gets to rule Macedon again, and while that seems logical given Minerva was not as good, It was a responsibility she had to take on because she disagreed with his actions, and stripped Macedon of him. Minerva continued the way as a warrior while Michalis became a statesman, and while she overcame Michalis as a warrior, she needed to take responsibility for her actions, and it's something that made her story really cool, whereas in this game it is given back to him.

-Gharnef was brought back, and while he was responsible for pretty much everything again I felt like he was kind of wasted in this game and had less of a presence.

-Medues gets revived by a random ritual that came out of nowhere that needs maidens.

Pretty much stuff like that I found to be weird. But Hardin on the other hand I liked a lot, and while the fact that he is corrupted is kind of cheap I actually really, really, really sad when he died Because not only was he one of my favorite characters from fe11 but his final words were very touching, the man has a really tragic story and he deserved so much better for how cool of a guy he is.

For the most part though I liked a lot of where the plot went (Minus Kris), and while the assassin sub plot I felt disrupted the flow of the game at some points I actually liked the end of it, Eremiah's ending is really dark, and it added that kind of tone to the game, kind of like the Orson subplot in FE8.

I can't say I like this game better than Shadow Dragon, it probably would of been closer if Kris wasn't a thing but alas, here we are. Really solid game that I would say is in my top 5 for FE games.

 

Please share your thoughts on FE12, I would love to hear them.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I actually finished this game earlier today actually. I delayed for a few weeks stopping around the Flame Barrel in doing so, due to some frustrations later on with same turn reinforcements. Also, I had played FEs 3-6-4 relatively recently beforehand, so to see Book 2 again wasn't as fresh as it could have been had I spaced things out more.

 

Presentation is not as austere as FE11, but the additional CGs were a boon that showed more effort being put into this game for me. Compared to FE3 Book 2 however, Marth took a hit with and without considering Kris- no more alarmed/serious face why? Music was an overall downgrade too, which hurt the presentation. Artistically, things aren't bad, but I think the SNES stuff had a charm this cleaner game lacks.

Kris is very bleh and I could do without the new Prologue narrative as a whole is. But Kris didn't burn down a village and eat its citizens for me- I haven't the unending bile for them to say it clearly.

 

In gameplay:

The roster bloat of 79 characters hurts, though NM's meagre attempt to give them characterization is more than Shadow Dragon ever tried, if still just a half-shredded fig leaf. Speaking of being shredded, most units start pretty bad for anything other than Normal.

Enemy variety, whilst still having its leanings, is certainly much more varied than SD. NM actually went and added Swordmasters, Sages, Warriors and Berserkers to maps that never had any (which is all of them because they didn't exist in FE3), and they added more non-Dragons to Anri's Way. Swords are no longer gimped as the weakest part of the WT due to Axe presence through the entire game, yay!

Keeping all the modernizations of FE11 and tossing in a few more like the Training Grounds was good. The game plays fairly fast still, which is great.

Hard was not devoid of difficulty, if still easy with the ever-broken Farore and Nayru plus the new Kris. Maniac and Lunatic/+ I can only envision the 160 million evils of, though ir sounds like it could be fun.

New Prologue maps were fairly fun and distinctively short, so were the new Gaidens- except for Caesar and Radd being suicidal.

 

Overall I like it and can see why someone would. Would play again, but not now.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Faellin]

I personally really enjoyed the remake.

If I had to take points off it for something, Kris forcing himself into the spotlight way to much got a bit annoying when he had nothing to really do with the overall story. I'm fine with him playing more of a part during the Katarina and friends side chapters since he actually does have relevance to that.

I just wish he would shutup a bit more when he isn't needed. If he did this, I would say he would be a prime example of how an avatar unit should be in these games. A side character who is more or less along for the ride while giving the real spotlight to the actual main lord. But having a few side chapters dedicated to developing them as a character.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Faellin

[Jingle Jangle]

For me, Fe12 felt like a proto Awakening. It was the first game to have the modern avatar system, casual mode that 13 would be attributed to having. The maps were a great improvement over SD less of enemy forces composed of horses or armor knights. I like the artwork here over SD, much cleaner.

Kris was a missed opportunity. From being more of the focus story wise at times than Marth to his blind loyalty toward him make him difficult doesn't give much charm. The massive cast of units is poor. There are about 15ish great units and the rest varying degrees of bad, especially in harder modes.

[eclipse]

Uhhh. . .regarding Michalis. . .

Spoiler

In the original, Michalis manages to survive long enough to give Marth Starlight.  In FE12, his ending is unclear.

The thing about FE12 is that your best characters can take 2-3 hits. . .but the same is true of the enemy.  The difficulty spikes in weird places, too.  I like how Warp/Silver Card are removed form the hardest difficulties, as a way of removing some of the cheese.  I also like how Javelins/Hand Axes were implemented, so it wasn't so heavily focused on "put one good unit up front and press End Turn".

Deserts still suck, though.

[Etrurian emperor]

I remember being surprisingly impressed with FE12. My expectations were really low due to Shadow Dragon deciding on a barely present story filled with mutes, but FE12 wasn´t anything like that. Its the game Shadow Dragon should have always been. Suddenly people talked, and suddenly Marth was allowed to speak to other characters then Malledus and Nyna in cutscenes. 

FE12 would go on to fix what went wrong in Shadow Dragon. Characters had supports, limited ones but they were at least there and did wonders for characters like Gordin who turned out to be a very good big bro, or Jeorge with his family history. Cutscenes are more dynamic due to Malledus' retirement and with Lang we got some villain screentime that Shadow Dragon always skipped out on. I also enjoyed characters showing some growth and not all automatically being on the same sides due their ties to other factions. 

I didn't like Chris but I found him pretty easy to ignore. Just close your eyes and pretend someone more interesting is doing the talking. 

Its been a long time but I recall finding the map design pretty excellent overall.  

[VincentASM]

I was surprised in a good way as well. Unlike some, I enjoyed Shadow Dragon, but I acknowledged its shortcomings. So I entered with minimal expectations.

New Mystery did a lot to help to fix things, although it was still based off the Shadow Dragon engine, so there was only so much they could do. As mentioned, they fixed the enemy variety so it wasn't the same as the SNES version. They also added a lot more characterisation thanks to the base system. Plus many new elements to make it feel like more than just a remake, such as the Avatar system, training grounds, etc. And the addition of the BSFE chapters was amazing and completely unexpected.

I also think New Mystery handled the difficulty really well. I don't normally play FE on high difficulties, but for some crazy reason, I tried Lunatic. It took many resets, but I managed to clear it somehow. Never did I feel like the enemy was cheating, but boy did I need to up my game and play more aggressively than usual. That was before they added the Rainbow Potion as well...

My fondness for the game was what made me help translate the game, once I realised Nintendo was gonna skip it in favour of Awakening. I think it's sad the game didn't get an official English translation, since it's well worth playing. But I know many fans were burned by Shadow Dragon and the DS was on its last legs (since the 3DS was already out and Awakening was announced by then xD).

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

What happen when we took the best game in the series by a mile landslide of all landslide in landslide history and remake it?

Well some things got worse, some things got better, except FE3 is still so freaking good that FE1+2 ended up being really good too

 

Is basically my entire thoughts on it. I still hate they basically simplified Chiki, understandable as it is, since FE3 Chiki is the funnest, most unique implementation of Manakete that no other game ever manage to even match even half of it.

[DemolisherBPB]

I really enjoy FE 12, and after playing FE 3 I actually find myself looking on it more fondly. The fact I can have units that use axes is a godsend and the overall changes aren't that offensive to me. I don't even mind the Kris thing that much as they don't do anything bad, they just exist and I'm glad for the supports mostly being "Hi I'm X this is what I'm like" since a lot of the Archena cast are just faces with 3 lines of dialogue otherwise.

[X-Naut]

With regards to difficulty, I thought the philosophy was handled well but the execution was weak in some ways. Character stats are balanced for Normal (i.e. OG Mystery), resulting in a lot of understatted characters on the highest difficulty. Besides that I felt like some enemies were overtuned (Chapter 1, Chapter 9 Dracos...), the level curve felt like it could've been propped up, and I dislike how the Big Three mostly devolving into rigging save point crits (and FE12's critical hit environment in general).

[JimmyBeans]

16 hours ago, eclipse said:

Uhhh. . .regarding Michalis. . .

Spoiler

Michalis - Renewed Prince
Accounts are conflicted about Michalis after the war. Some said he ruled over Macedon once again, while others claimed he departed to conquer another continent.

You're right, but mainly it's the fact that Minerva gave the kingdom away at the end that erks me a bit.

14 hours ago, VincentASM said:

(snip)

I'm glad you thought so, and let me thank you for translating it, I come to the site often to remind myself of certain events within the game because I love Archanea so much.

[eclipse]

5 hours ago, JimmyBeans said:

You're right, but mainly it's the fact that Minerva gave the kingdom away at the end that erks me a bit.

She does that in the original, too, so it's not just a FE12 thing.  It's understandable, even if it is a little annoying.

[Interdimensional Observer]

23 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Is basically my entire thoughts on it. I still hate they basically simplified Chiki, understandable as it is, since FE3 Chiki is the funnest, most unique implementation of Manakete that no other game ever manage to even match even half of it.

Definitely agreed. FE3 Tiki is very unique and powerful, but balanced. Being able to 1-2 Range 2HKO everything is amazing, but permanent 0 AS keeps her offense in check. Being able to hit the 20 Def cap easily with a Dracoshield or two, 40+ HP, and a rare high Res stat (capped with Mage Dragon) is incredible, but always being doubled and things like Snipers and Heroes having well over 20 Atk means she isn't absolutely invincible. On the durability side, she furthermore has the one of a kind (well two with Bantu) property of having a Def stat against enemy Dragons and via the Divinestone tearing heavily into them as well; flight when shifted into Divine and Wyvern are yet more boons. 18 uses per Stone + a minimum of 5 turns per transformation with a 50% chance of 11, means Tiki never has to worry about running out of attacks.

Knowing all this made auto-benching Tiki in FE12 disappointing. Going to the Fae format for Manaketes was a bad move.

 

I agree that Minerva should have kept Macedon. Minerva's political weakness seemed just like something to drag her character down with for no reason but to create peril that Marth has to resolve. But...

1. Nyna ceding Archanea was fine, she is just a princess who doesn't seem to have had much political talent herself.
2. The King of Aurelis is old, childless, brotherless, and explicitly asked Marth to have his kingdom when he handed him the Lifesphere.
3. Caeda married Marth so Talys makes sense. 
4. Jubelo and Yumina are only little kids, so Grust being passed on to the established matured talent of Marth works, even the twins could technically could inherit it later after a regency.
5. Gra used to be part of Altea and Sheena might not have ever spent much time at home b/c Daddy was mean and she fled to Archanea as a child.
6. Marth already rules Altea.

This makes six of the Seven Kingdoms of Archanea, only Macedon is not in Marth's possession. Leaving Macedon alone independent would be a little weird I could see the writer of the time thinking, so Minerva had to cede her throne so Marth could form a unified holy continental Kingdom of Archanea, in direct contrast to Hardin's corrupted Archanean Empire. Only Dolhr and Khadein presumably remain independent, Pyrathi and Port Warren (was it actually independent of Archanea?) we know nothing of, but presumably they both get assimilated into Marth's kingdom.

Narratively, I think one has to forgive FE12 for being based on an SNES game, not exactly an era in gaming for high storytelling well not until FE4. Not only that, but you have to consider FE3 had that slightly abridged remake of FE1 included, which certainly affected how the War of Heroes turned out. At the least, you can see this in the gameplay, where the early maps aren't quite what I'd call "normal" or "beginner friendly" compared to some other FEs, due to the assumption the player played Book 1 first and thus knows all the basics quite well.

Gharnef's and Medeus's returns make a bit more sense if you see them not as making an independent sequel? Maybe? I'm not sure how strong my argument is that because the War of Heroes was on the same cartridge as the War of Shadows, it sharing villains makes more sense than if it were a sequel apart from that. They didn't have that much space to make a more independent storyline fit?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Definitely agreed. FE3 Tiki is very unique and powerful, but balanced. Being able to 1-2 Range 2HKO everything is amazing, but permanent 0 AS keeps her offense in check. Being able to hit the 20 Def cap easily with a Dracoshield or two, 40+ HP, and a rare high Res stat (capped with Mage Dragon) is incredible, but always being doubled and things like Snipers and Heroes having well over 20 Atk means she isn't absolutely invincible. On the durability side, she furthermore has the one of a kind (well two with Bantu) property of having a Def stat against enemy Dragons and via the Divinestone tearing heavily into them as well; flight when shifted into Divine and Wyvern are yet more boons. 18 uses per Stone + a minimum of 5 turns per transformation with a 50% chance of 11, means Tiki never has to worry about running out of attacks.

Knowing all this made auto-benching Tiki in FE12 disappointing. Going to the Fae format for Manaketes was a bad move.

 

I agree that Minerva should have kept Macedon. Minerva's political weakness seemed just like something to drag her character down with for no reason but to create peril that Marth has to resolve. But...

1. Nyna ceding Archanea was fine, she is just a princess who doesn't seem to have had much political talent herself.
2. The King of Aurelis is old, childless, brotherless, and explicitly asked Marth to have his kingdom when he handed him the Lifesphere.
3. Caeda married Marth so Talys makes sense. 
4. Jubelo and Yumina are only little kids, so Grust being passed on to the established matured talent of Marth works, even the twins could technically could inherit it later after a regency.
5. Gra used to be part of Altea and Sheena might not have ever spent much time at home b/c Daddy was mean and she fled to Archanea as a child.
6. Marth already rules Altea.

This makes six of the Seven Kingdoms of Archanea, only Macedon is not in Marth's possession. Leaving Macedon alone independent would be a little weird I could see the writer of the time thinking, so Minerva had to cede her throne so Marth could form a unified holy continental Kingdom of Archanea, in direct contrast to Hardin's corrupted Archanean Empire. Only Dolhr and Khadein presumably remain independent, Pyrathi and Port Warren (was it actually independent of Archanea?) we know nothing of, but presumably they both get assimilated into Marth's kingdom.

Narratively, I think one has to forgive FE12 for being based on an SNES game, not exactly an era in gaming for high storytelling well not until FE4. Not only that, but you have to consider FE3 had that slightly abridged remake of FE1 included, which certainly affected how the War of Heroes turned out. At the least, you can see this in the gameplay, where the early maps aren't quite what I'd call "normal" or "beginner friendly" compared to some other FEs, due to the assumption the player played Book 1 first and thus knows all the basics quite well.

Gharnef's and Medeus's returns make a bit more sense if you see them not as making an independent sequel? Maybe? I'm not sure how strong my argument is that because the War of Heroes was on the same cartridge as the War of Shadows, it sharing villains makes more sense than if it were a sequel apart from that. They didn't have that much space to make a more independent storyline fit?

 

I personally kinda think Minerva not being that good at Political stuff make a bit of a sense, but then again my argument about it(shes a merc) would got dismissed completely since then you have Hardin being perfect for no reason

 

I don't think Gharnef and Medeus return makes little sense as a whole, my entire issue with them is tied to ironically the game's main theme: since its all about Marth and Hardin and the former breaking his "reliance" on Hardin, the dragon subplot didn't really go too far beyond a thematic potrayal of Marth's manning up and the Gharnef Medeus section feels very tacked on

[X-Naut]

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I agree that Minerva should have kept Macedon. Minerva's political weakness seemed just like something to drag her character down with for no reason but to create peril that Marth has to resolve. But...

1. Nyna ceding Archanea was fine, she is just a princess who doesn't seem to have had much political talent herself.
2. The King of Aurelis is old, childless, brotherless, and explicitly asked Marth to have his kingdom when he handed him the Lifesphere.
3. Caeda married Marth so Talys makes sense. 
4. Jubelo and Yumina are only little kids, so Grust being passed on to the established matured talent of Marth works, even the twins could technically could inherit it later after a regency.
5. Gra used to be part of Altea and Sheena might not have ever spent much time at home b/c Daddy was mean and she fled to Archanea as a child.
6. Marth already rules Altea.

This makes six of the Seven Kingdoms of Archanea, only Macedon is not in Marth's possession. Leaving Macedon alone independent would be a little weird I could see the writer of the time thinking, so Minerva had to cede her throne so Marth could form a unified holy continental Kingdom of Archanea, in direct contrast to Hardin's corrupted Archanean Empire. Only Dolhr and Khadein presumably remain independent, Pyrathi and Port Warren (was it actually independent of Archanea?) we know nothing of, but presumably they both get assimilated into Marth's kingdom.

Minerva touches on the issue in her Palla support: she believes that Iote's dynasty needs to end in order to quell Macedon's nationalist pride. If anyone re-establishes Macedon's sovereignty I think it would be Maria (once she's old enough) trying to follow in her older siblings' footsteps and do it right.

With Nyna I think it has less to do with her being politically inept and more to do with a combination of guilt, being too deeply entrenched in the old ways, and being mentally done with being a princess. She never really got the chance to be a reigning monarch: her parliament/cabinet/senate/etc. immediately pushed her to marry and they ceded power to her king. And if there were survivors after Hardin was deposed they'd lobby to have her married to Marth, or potentially use her as a martyr and enact a coup to keep Archanea from losing its rule over the continent to the Altea-Talys alliance. Marth and Caeda don't deserve that, and they don't deserve another chance to ruin everything. She bears some of the blame for complying with Archanean politics too, and probably doesn't think she deserves a second chance either. Better to cut Adrah's dynasty out of the picture and let a new dynasty take its place, and it frees her to chase after Camus's ghost (futile as it is).

Dohlr and Pyrathi have probably ceased to exist, the former dissolving after Medeus's demise and the latter probably doing the same after Mannu's. If the lands aren't subjugated by the UKA then they're rogue states that pose no threat and can be absorbed sooner or later. To my knowledge Port Warren wasn't independent of Archanea, but bought its independence from Dohlrian control through taxes. So that leaves Khadein, but that's one small city-state surrounded by a continental kingdom, kinda like the Vatican in Italy.

[Interdimensional Observer]

44 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Minerva touches on the issue in her Palla support: she believes that Iote's dynasty needs to end in order to quell Macedon's nationalist pride. If anyone re-establishes Macedon's sovereignty I think it would be Maria (once she's old enough) trying to follow in her older siblings' footsteps and do it right.

 

I forgot that, FE12's limited supports did well here. That's a plausible answer, Michalis himself was a Macedonian nationalist with a little Gharnef manipulation now stay together Europe or Medeussia is coming for you!.

 

3 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I don't think Gharnef and Medeus return makes little sense as a whole, my entire issue with them is tied to ironically the game's main theme: since its all about Marth and Hardin and the former breaking his "reliance" on Hardin, the dragon subplot didn't really go too far beyond a thematic potrayal of Marth's manning up and the Gharnef Medeus section feels very tacked on

Anri's Way does lose much of its significance if one drops Medeus though. Since the little story that happens during it is expose about dragon decline, until at its very end Gotoh explains at the Ice Dragon Temple the origins of the Fire Emblem and Hardin's manipulation.

Anri's Way however in the context of the War of Heroes: Marth vs. Hardin, which is the forefront conflict of Mystery B2, total filler. It's a separate strand in the plot, connected to the other only by manipulation of Hardin to achieve its villain's goals.

The dragon vein and the evil emperor are certainly better intertwined in Binding Blade, where the former becomes the latter's shock weapon and dream (a bizarre dream given only War Dragons exist, but a dream nonetheless). Though that game's copy Grust Expedition/Macedon Rebellion- The Western Isles- is worse than Anri's Way.

You're right that Gharnef is pretty tacked on, he does more than Medeus- who sadly exists only to SPEAK IN ALL CAPS and do nothing else- but is probably less necessary. Why couldn't the Darksphere have simply been discovered at Thabes after vanquishing Gharnef there? Marth wouldn't have known what it was at the time, it gets passed around by his troops, a bunch of them return to Archanea and either sell it to a merchant who sells it to Hardin, or they present their new king with it as a gift. Regardless, Hardin gets it, it corrupts him because Nyna still doesn't love him, all is good for the plot.

Medeus could resurrect without Gharnef- Gotoh makes the point the seal on the Earth Dragons is approaching its end. It could easily be imagined that in the year after Marth's victory over Medeus, the seal wore away to a tipping point, where its shackling effects began to decline at an accelerated exponential rate.

 

1 hour ago, X-Naut said:

and it frees her to chase after Camus's ghost (futile as it is).

 

In light of Faye and her ending, not to mention we already have Marisha in the same game, I hesitate to think to what lengths Nyna could end up going.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Definitely agreed. FE3 Tiki is very unique and powerful, but balanced. Being able to 1-2 Range 2HKO everything is amazing, but permanent 0 AS keeps her offense in check. Being able to hit the 20 Def cap easily with a Dracoshield or two, 40+ HP, and a rare high Res stat (capped with Mage Dragon) is incredible, but always being doubled and things like Snipers and Heroes having well over 20 Atk means she isn't absolutely invincible. On the durability side, she furthermore has the one of a kind (well two with Bantu) property of having a Def stat against enemy Dragons and via the Divinestone tearing heavily into them as well; flight when shifted into Divine and Wyvern are yet more boons. 18 uses per Stone + a minimum of 5 turns per transformation with a 50% chance of 11, means Tiki never has to worry about running out of attacks.

Knowing all this made auto-benching Tiki in FE12 disappointing. Going to the Fae format for Manaketes was a bad move.

Speaking of Tiki, what really sucks is that dragonstones lose durability even if the user can't counter. Granted, this can be addressed with the Starsphere, but even then, she still has to deal with stat issues.

[Interdimensional Observer]

16 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Granted, this can be addressed with the Starsphere, but even then, she still has to deal with stat issues.

Only in FE11 I think. SF doesn't list stopping weapon durability loss in its FE12 description of the Starsphere, only its +2 to most stats, and I don't recall any weapon durability loss stoppage when I played FE12.

Although you can buy Tiki more Dragonstones- but they're still limited if you don't really stock up and they're a bit pricey.

Overall the Spheres got nerfed compared to FE3. Star lost infinite weapon durability, and saws its +30% universal growths boost turned to a less broken flat stats boost. Light no longer negates Crits and effective bonuses (which for a time means two Iote's Shields in FE3), Life went from restoring all HP to just 20, and Geo lost its +10 Hit bonus (I get why they removed the "attack everyone for 13 damage three times" property.

[Shadow Mir]

59 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Only in FE11 I think. SF doesn't list stopping weapon durability loss in its FE12 description of the Starsphere, only its +2 to most stats, and I don't recall any weapon durability loss stoppage when I played FE12.

Although you can buy Tiki more Dragonstones- but they're still limited if you don't really stock up and they're a bit pricey.

Overall the Spheres got nerfed compared to FE3. Star lost infinite weapon durability, and saws its +30% universal growths boost turned to a less broken flat stats boost. Light no longer negates Crits and effective bonuses (which for a time means two Iote's Shields in FE3), Life went from restoring all HP to just 20, and Geo lost its +10 Hit bonus (I get why they removed the "attack everyone for 13 damage three times" property.

Damn. I thought it retained the weapon degradation stopping effect from the other games. Still, Manaketes were at their worst in the DS games overall.

Except on Lunatic, where you don't get the Warp staff to access the secret shop with them..

Yeah. 

Edited May 20, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Azz]

Honestly, despite my utter hatred for Kris and how neutered Marth was from SD, FE12 is sound tbh.

Gameplay is solid tho it's near identical to SD, but SD has great gameplay so yeah. Tho like others have mentioned, Tiki is so much more fun to play as in og Mystery tbh. Characters got more lines which Archanea characters needed in general. I'm actually a fan of Katarina and the assassin's subplot even if it is just Nino's character arc 2.0 (tho I wish Marth was the character involved and not Kris).

The story is the story, you can't you really judge it too harshly since it's based off a snes game. Though I still feel like the story would've been better overall if Medeus being revived was scraped and it was just Hardin having gone mad instead, but FE in general needs more human conflict than dragons tbh. Again, Kris is bad, wish he wasn't there or at least didn't have a large role. In any other game he'd be fine, but he was inserted in an established story, so the changes are noticeable, especially to someone like me who is a fe3 fan.

Another thing I don't like is how characters that didn't appear in old mystery just popped up, especially the ones who ended up retiring after the first war. Like the Archanean knights, they all retired (besides Midia and Astram), why are they playable?). I know they wanted to add axe users and such, but some of them don't make sense and just bloat the roster.

Overall, FE12 is certainly low on my fe list, but I still think it's a good game (though I do prefer Shadow Dragon and the og mystery to it).

[JimmyBeans]

2 hours ago, Azz said:

Honestly, despite my utter hatred for Kris and how neutered Marth was from SD, FE12 is sound tbh.

Gameplay is solid tho it's near identical to SD, but SD has great gameplay so yeah. Tho like others have mentioned, Tiki is so much more fun to play as in og Mystery tbh. Characters got more lines which Archanea characters needed in general. I'm actually a fan of Katarina and the assassin's subplot even if it is just Nino's character arc 2.0 (tho I wish Marth was the character involved and not Kris).

The story is the story, you can't you really judge it too harshly since it's based off a snes game. Though I still feel like the story would've been better overall if Medeus being revived was scraped and it was just Hardin having gone mad instead, but FE in general needs more human conflict than dragons tbh. Again, Kris is bad, wish he wasn't there or at least didn't have a large role. In any other game he'd be fine, but he was inserted in an established story, so the changes are noticeable, especially to someone like me who is a fe3 fan.

Another thing I don't like is how characters that didn't appear in old mystery just popped up, especially the ones who ended up retiring after the first war. Like the Archanean knights, they all retired (besides Midia and Astram), why are they playable?). I know they wanted to add axe users and such, but some of them don't make sense and just bloat the roster.

Overall, FE12 is certainly low on my fe list, but I still think it's a good game (though I do prefer Shadow Dragon and the og mystery to it).

Bold: I can't agree more, while I really like FE12 I felt Marth was a serious downgrade, someone told me Japan didn't like is SD depiction and so they went with the what we got in FE12, but I don't know how true that is...

[eclipse]

4 hours ago, Azz said:

Another thing I don't like is how characters that didn't appear in old mystery just popped up, especially the ones who ended up retiring after the first war. Like the Archanean knights, they all retired (besides Midia and Astram), why are they playable?). I know they wanted to add axe users and such, but some of them don't make sense and just bloat the roster.

Midia is somewhat excusable, as she tried to mount a rebellion against Hardin.  Astram's stupidly loyal, so if his sword arm was needed, he'd be there.

[FoxyGrandpa]

I'm pretty fine with Marth's depiction in this game in all honesty. His FE3 depiction was kinda meh for me because the game made it seem as though he knew zilch about his kingdom's past and the exposition, though interesting, seemed pretty forced. Kris's existence circumvents this issue since Jeigan and Marth can just blow all the kingdom's lore and backstory onto him and it makes sense since he's a foreigner.

Kris is an okay inclusion I feel. I'm not really bother'd by his character being one-dimensional / bland since he's a blank slate and his presence benefits almost every other character in the game since they have at least one support with him. The only character I feel doesn't benefit is Marth, who mostly gets out staged by him. I will admit, playing as the female avatar over the male one is a bit weird, since Marth and her have so much dialogue together, his connection with her seems tighter than with Caeda. I'm probably looking way too deep into this, but it bothered me to a degree.

As for the story, I'm not a fan of the time skip between this game and shadow dragon being only 2 years rather than 5, feel like it lessens the significance of the conflict and makes the game harder to connect with FE2. The rest of the story is fine. Each chapter feels more relevant to the main story than in Shadow Dragon because the game has a lot more text that sets up events during chapters and has dialogue during chapters that help build tension. What I like is that a lot of story and gameplay elements are tied together, like Astram and his Hero squad hunting you down or Jeorge and his Snipers staying put cause they hate Hardin. That little stuff adds charm to the world and characters.

Gameplay is pretty similar to Shadow Dragon, definitely a massive step up from the SNES game. I found some of the mechanical nuances in FE3 to be better for gameplay, like dismounting and Tiki's dragon transformations. Thing is, the SNES game is hella slow and had worse maps design for the most part. Fe12 makes pretty much every map more interesting since it has more re-reinforcements and larger squads of enemies, keeping the player on their toes more. That being said, its pretty hard for the game to have reasonable difficulty since enemies either are laughably easy or WAY too stronger. Ambush spawn reinforcements also can get annoying, esp for super high movement classes like those stupid flying dragon enemies with 12 move and retardedly high speed to double all your units.. As such, it can be difficult to play the game fast on higher difficulties, though the UI changes still make it much faster to play than OG mystery of the emblem.

All in all, I love this game, but its got its fair share of problems, similar to Shadow Dragon. 

[Etrurian emperor]

On 5/19/2019 at 6:46 PM, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

 

I personally kinda think Minerva not being that good at Political stuff make a bit of a sense, but then again my argument about it(shes a merc) would got dismissed completely since then you have Hardin being perfect for no reason

Hardin probably had some more experience in ruling. His brother is apparently in really bad health so Hardin could have reigned for regent for a long time. From Wolf's backstory we know Hardin was behind the abolition of slavery. I suppose Hardin working extra hard in the vain hope of getting into Nyna's pants could also explain his good performance. 

And Minerva just never wanted to rule. Hardin did whether its due to his pride or getting into Nyna's pants. 

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Hardin probably had some more experience in ruling. His brother is apparently in really bad health so Hardin could have reigned for regent for a long time. From Wolf's backstory we know Hardin was behind the abolition of slavery. I suppose Hardin working extra hard in the vain hope of getting into Nyna's pants could also explain his good performance. 

And Minerva just never wanted to rule. Hardin did whether its due to his pride or getting into Nyna's pants. 

Yeah idk what i was thinking about when typing that looking back. From the get go in his backstory its made rather clear that Hardin had a thing with management duty and he had his priority clear that he always want the best for the people. Its amusing a guy like that could fall from what is essentially confidence issues