My first time playing FE:A

[Ginsan00]

I started to play Fire Emblem Awakening these days and that's my second fire emblem game (I've played Radiant Dawn before). After 8 hours playing normal mode I got the feeling that normal mode is so easy and maybe griding in early lvls wasn't a good idea. However, I'm in doubt about hard mode. First, I'd like to complete support system, making couples, unlock lvls and that stuff, but I can do it in hard mode w/o problems? Or Hard mode is such battle oriented game style? Can you guys help me? I need some insights.

I'm casual player btw and I used to play normal mode in Radiant what most of people rate as ''hard''.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

Awakenings hard mode is probably easier than Radiant Dawn's Normal mode, and a part of that is that Radiant Dawn had its difficulty setting basically mistranslated in the west (the previous entry added in an easier mode, and cut the hardest mode, but they didn't bother doing that with Radiant Dawn but kept the naming convention the same, so Radiant Dawn's easy mode in the west was really its normal mode, and normal mode its hard mode etc.). If you are finding normal mode too easy you might want to give hard mode a try, just don't make it even harder by cutting out the level of grinding that made normal mode easy for you, and keep your normal mode save around for a little bit just in case you don't like the new difficulty.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Eltosian Kadath

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Awakenings hard mode is probably easier than Radiant Dawn's Normal mode, and a part of that is that Radiant Dawn had its difficulty setting basically mistranslated in the west (the previous entry added in an easier mode, and cut the hardest mode, but they didn't bother doing that with Radiant Dawn but kept the naming convention the same, so Radiant Dawn's easy mode in the west was really its normal mode, and normal mode its hard mode etc.). If you are finding normal mode too easy you might want to give hard mode a try, just don't make it even harder by cutting out the level of grinding that made normal mode easy for you, and keep your normal mode save around for a little bit just in case you don't like the new difficulty.

I agree with this. As a word of warning; enemy reinforcements will appear before enemy phase on hard mode.

[Vince777]

I played the entire game without using the pairing system because I wanted it a FE experience like most others (still benefited from the pairings when they stand close to one another).

Even with this handicap, it didn't feel hard at all, although I think I've only played on normal mode. 

[Zkitty8]

Hard mode in Awakening isn't too difficult. Reeking boxes are more expensive in hard mode but you can still grind levels and supports on the random map spawns. I agree that you should give hard mode a try and keep the old save in case you want to go back.

[salty__asiann]

Hard mode can get hard (or you must bench RNG screwed units) cause if you wanna deploy the full army its really hard to spread xp out well. Cause if I don't use DLC Gaius or Sully drops off cause they got RNG screwed. Sully only got skill/spd and stopped being good after she level 5 GK. Gaius was just a pairup bot and promoted too late and he had to get benched with Sully even if they an S support rank. Yeah Gaius was like a level 8 theif? (I had to use skirmishes to level him from base cause he gets murdered on his joining) and he was just a pairbot for Sully after that. 

Virion sucks. Its the bandwagon but I only use him on grind runs.

Miriel I dont like. Same as Virion. She DOES hve good magic modifiers but she's such a boring character. 

 

Heck, I've had a run WHERE

ROBIN

yes ROBIN (OP god S tier Robin) became shitty cause his level ups were all just +HP and +Spd/+skill and nothing else. It was terribad. 

Tiki and Anna might be unusable by endgame if you never used them cause their joining ratings are only around 170 and 115 respectively, and endgame swarming murdered them. Tiki has speed issues and Anna can be godly if you just spams staves to 15 Trickster early enough.