How Three Houses Taught Me To Stop Worrying And Stop Min-Maxing

[Superbus]

I've had a problem with the Fire Emblem games for almost 15 years: I am addicted to "metagaming", or as it's known now, "min-maxing". 

When the Game Boy games were still new, I would take the ROM versions, load Codebreaker codes onto them, and just see how people did when I leveled them up infinitely. What were their stats at 20, 20-20, and how long would it take to cap them out. I know there's maths for that, but I didn't bomb out of Nuke School in 2000 to be doing that kind of nonsense. 

I think my habit started with the Suikoden games. For those who don't know how Suikoden works, if you don't do certain things JUST right, you won't get all 108 characters, and if that happens, your favourite character fucking dies. Later favourite games of mine were not much better: Trails (Cold Steel/In The Sky), Persona, and Atelier were made for obsessive-compulsives who tolerate GameFAQs text files and the amateur comedians who write them.

My min-max tendencies continued with Awakening and Fates - the latter an almost aggressively shitty set of games, nothing more than Mary Sue fanfiction with a pinch of horny - as I would pair up characters with different pairings* to see how the kids turned out, how certain combinations came out, etc. 

(* - Not always. IT WILL ALWAYS BE CHROM X SUMIA AND TAKUMI X OBORO, DAMNIT)

Then came Three Heroes. Not only is there a certain way to adjust growths, but I'm guessing (no FUCKING SPOILERS, I'm still in June) a perfectly done way of who to talk to on X school day, who to give what gifts to, and a scientifically perfect way of ensuring that you get everyone on your team with S supports and perfectly calibrated stats and if my experiences back at FESS are indicative, they will tell you this at  high volume with much caps-lock usage.

When I got the game and learned what I was in for, I was intimidated. I am obsessive about good runs and leaving nothing left behind, if only because I'm damn near 40, with a wife and a home I own and like 42 different careers, and don't have time to go back and do it again, but right this time. It looked like I was dealing with a game that combined the worst OCD tendencies of Trails, Suikoden and Fire Emblem.

That's when I realized... let it happen! I don't need FAQs, or Prima Guides (pour one out), or anything like that. So what if I don't get all the items, or if someone dies because I killed them? Let it happen! Let's take this as an indication of my skill, and see what actually *role playing* is good for! This is exceptionally good for this game, where half the game seems to be a personality test. I don't 'even remember what kind of flowers my wife likes, I'm not going to study a website to find out that Random Anime Trope 81 likes cats.

I feel relieved. I feel free! I feel like dancing in a field of flowers barefoot while singing showtunes, until I realize that I'm not as agile as I was as a young man and things start to ache and I start sweating profusely and also my wife is telling me nonsense like "honey, you're outside of a Wendy's, please stop embarrassing me".