First run of Awakening (please no spoilers)

[Life]

So as the title says, I'm on my first run of Awakening since I never played it and I grew up on the GBA games, FE4 and FE9.

 

So, because I'm effectively playing blind, I have a question.

 

Why is Cherche OHKOing Armours in her join chapter on Hard Mode? This game seems a bit... I don't want to say easy because Ambush Reinforcements suck on a first playthrough but the sheer strength of my army is kinda absurd.

 

Example: When wyverns first showed up, I decided that I would train Virion just so I could always OHKO them on player phase. Why is it easy to actually do this?

 

Sure, I like my gods among men of FE4 but that game felt like an outlier due to Holy Blood and Holy Weapons. Why do I have more excellent units than slots to deploy them with?

[Ottservia]

Because awakening is a very easy game unless you’re playing lunatic or lunatic+. Seriously the amount of ways you can actually break this game is kind of nuts. Especially when factoring some other  units you get in the game. Now those are a fun time. Severa is still best girl and that’s all I’ll say about that

Edited August 22, 2019 by Ottservia

[Zkitty8]

Awakening isn't very difficult on hard mode. Pair up is very strong and as you get more supports your units snowball and become really powerful. As for Cherche OHKOing armor knights in her join chapter, I'm pretty sure she comes with a hammer?

[Von Ithipathachai]

38 minutes ago, Zkitty8 said:

Awakening isn't very difficult on hard mode. Pair up is very strong and as you get more supports your units snowball and become really powerful. As for Cherche OHKOing armor knights in her join chapter, I'm pretty sure she comes with a hammer?

Yes, it's quite natural for anybody to OHKO Armored Knights with an anti-Armor weapon

[Life]

2 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Yes, it's quite natural for anybody to OHKO Armored Knights with an anti-Armor weapon

At base level? Level 12 Wyvern?

 

I mean, Miredy was good, sure, but even she isn't OHKOing Cavs with the Horseslayer without her HM bonuses. I just ran the numbers; she's got 50 effective Atk only after her +5 Str boost on HM.

 

Miredy is also considered one of the few broken FE6 units due to those bonuses and a mount. And yes, I'm comparing the two because they are effectively the same unit (similar join time, first Wyvern, excellent and very similar stats).

 

Cherche, on the other hand, has almost identical stats to HM Miredy (Cherche doesn't even need HM bonuses to do that) in a game where my avatar is ORKOing everything from range with the durability of a greased pig. Like, Cherche should be considered broken everywhere else and yet, I'm yawning because this isn't special here (and I just reclassed Sully to Wyvern Rider for the lulz).

 

This game is absurd.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Life

[Ottservia]

5 minutes ago, Life said:

At base level? Level 12 Wyvern?

 

I mean, Miredy was good, sure, but even she isn't OHKOing Cavs with the Horseslayer without her HM bonuses. I just ran the numbers; she's got 50 effective Atk only after her +5 Str boost on HM.

 

Miredy is also considered one of the few broken FE6 units due to those bonuses and a mount. And yes, I'm comparing the two because they are effectively the same unit (similar join time, first Wyvern, excellent and very similar stats).

 

Cherche, on the other hand, has almost identical stats to HM Miredy (Cherche doesn't even need HM bonuses to do that) in a game where my avatar is ORKOing everything from range with the durability of a greased pig. Like, Cherche should be considered broken everywhere else and yet, I'm yawning because this isn't special here (and I just reclassed Sully to Wyvern Rider for the lulz).

 

This game is absurd.

Just wait til you get the paralogue units after chapter 13. You ain’t seen nothing yet!

[eclipse]

2 hours ago, Life said:

This game is absurd.

If you really want to know how to break the game on Lunatic. . .well, you'll see.

The unpromoted enemies kinda suck by midgame, and it takes a while for them to disappear for good.  Promoted enemies are another matter.

Edited August 22, 2019 by eclipse

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

if you already played with previous titles, Awakening will be pretty much a walk in the park even on hard mode.

some of the most challenging maps will show up post-game, with Priam's map being probably one of the hardest.

 

otherwise, you can use Einherjar cards and summon characters from past games to fight with.

depending on when/where you summon them, some battles can be quite entertaining.

[Life]

I'm playing on an emulator so no online stuff.

[Hawkwing]

Yeah, it's pretty easy for units to become overpowered just by using them in Awakening. I didn't have this problem as much on Hard when compared to Normal, but then again I also hate benching units, so the experience was more spread out. For better and worse, I find that you have to deliberately make game more difficult, but considering that Awakening biggest strength is the amount of freedom you're given to indulge or ignore entire mechanics as you please, it's one of the best games in the series for doing challenge runs.

As for some quick advice for Hard:

• If you're struggling with the ambush reinforcements, just look up a guide. Googling something as simple as "Awakening Chapter X Reinforcements" will be enough to find what you're looking for. I can't say that there's any good design around them in this game. The warnings about when reinforcements will appear start out bad and only get worse as the game goes on, and even if you can deduce that, say, a flying unit will spawn in the fort far from your starting position, there are 6 classes in the game that fly, and one wields staves and another magic. Knowing the when, where, and who of reinforcements saves a lot of headache, and can actually add some strategy to the game at points.
• On hard, enemy units tend to have the same skills that you do. This includes the powerful level 15 skills on promoted units that are supposedly "balanced" on your side because they take some time to obtain. Needless to say, prepare yourself for the later parts of the game.
• After Chapter 13, several Paralogues begin to appear. I will leave the method of unlocking them up to you to discover, but you can obtain and play them out of order. It's possible to beat all of them the moment they appear, but some of them were designed to be entered later than others.