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Playing the games - feeling guilty.


MahoganyRaichu
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Hi there, guys! I came here seeking to get an answer to the questions I am so worried about. They are ridiculously stupid, but they ruin my enjoyment of the games. Long story short - I got interested in the series when FE Heroes came out. I always stayed away from tactical games in general  - not my genre at all.  However, my brother was a huge fan of the series and he encouraged me to try - maybe I'll get interested. I got hooked, so my brother suggested me to play Blazing Sword together. It was a blast he is good at it. I've decided to try Sacred Stones myself and it all became a nightmare - I am terrible at these games. Simply terrible. I am getting so inattentive, that a can lose half of my team in a single map. So I started resetting. And now I am feeling guilty - it was my fault they die (sometimes RNG is also to blame, I know, I know). So, the first question - how do you feel about resetting?  I know, later games have it covered, but I think it can also ruin my experience - if my units will revive in the next chapter it can also make me play carelessly. I don't want it. The second question is about the order of the games. After playing FE Heroes for a bit I have a gang of my favourite characters from various games and I am so curious to play them - but when I looked up the order of the games I understood that I've got more or less perfect entry point. Now I have Awakening, Fates and Echoes sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to play them. To make things worse - I've just received Three Houses for the Switch and I am dying to try them. But I have such a huge backlog of the unplayed games. I am also feeling guilty. My bro says just to chill out and do whatever pleases me, since only a few games are more or less story related, and resetting is totally fine, even top players do that (he is a fan of some well-known YouTubers and he also suggests me to watch a couple of lets plays together)  but...Am I just overthinking? blaming myself? I know, these are just games, but I want to enjoy them.I wouldn't ask if I've decided not to play these games. What do you think, guys? I am sorry it sounds stupid I am just very nervous girl^^*
P.S: I am not feeling the same way about heroes though. I know even if my characters die on a map - they are still here.

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Easy answer, play however you find the most fun.

Longer answer, resetting and playing through perfectly without losing anyone is the best way to learn and improve. Mage just one shot your knight? Find a higher Res unit to take the hit first then close in if the mage is still alive. You don't know all the tricks without trial and error. This series rewards patience and a desire to improve. I have more fun with the units I like and I enjoy growing weak units into powerhouses. Is it the "best" way to play? No. Units like Nino can be pretty challenging to keep alive and train, but I found it fun to keep trying until I succeeded. If you're aware of the various handicap methods of playing you'll know the game is beatable under very harsh circumstances.

As for order of playing them, I'd recommend watching Chaz Aria LLC's "Your First Fire Emblem". The TLDW is that it doesn't matter, but if you're really worried then there are games that teach you good habits better than others that he brings up.

Hope that helped somewhat, good luck and have fun with the games!

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29 minutes ago, TomLeggosaurus said:

Easy answer, play however you find the most fun.

Longer answer, resetting and playing through perfectly without losing anyone is the best way to learn and improve. Mage just one shot your knight? Find a higher Res unit to take the hit first then close in if the mage is still alive. You don't know all the tricks without trial and error. This series rewards patience and a desire to improve. I have more fun with the units I like and I enjoy growing weak units into powerhouses. Is it the "best" way to play? No. Units like Nino can be pretty challenging to keep alive and train, but I found it fun to keep trying until I succeeded. If you're aware of the various handicap methods of playing you'll know the game is beatable under very harsh circumstances.

As for order of playing them, I'd recommend watching Chaz Aria LLC's "Your First Fire Emblem". The TLDW is that it doesn't matter, but if you're really worried then there are games that teach you good habits better than others that he brings up.

Hope that helped somewhat, good luck and have fun with the games!

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Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I feel more relieved 😃  and I'll try to have fun and no to beat myself over it^___^

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5 minutes ago, MahoganyRaichu said:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I feel more relieved 😃  and I'll try to have fun and no to beat myself over it^___^

No worries at all! While it can be challenging at times, they're still just games! After you teach yourself the game, then you can consider if you want to add challenges to it, the most common being Ironman (or no resets). Just make sure you're having fun! 

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First of all, welcome to the site, the series, and all that.

Secondly, if you don't have any experience with tactics/strategy games at all, it's only natural that you'd start out not all that great.  It just takes practice and learning, sometimes asking questions about things you are having trouble with.  If you want to ask about general strategy, I'll be happy to give you some pointers.

Resetting is the way a lot of people play.  It's the way I basically always play if I'm not doing Casual/Phoenix (though at this point I'd only play those modes so that I can grind for things like einherjar units in Fates).  A run where you do no resets is known as an "iron man" run, and it's seen as a challenge run - the type of run you only do if you have the skill to do so (or you just prefer to play that way).  It's by no means a requirement to play that way, and if anyone tells you otherwise then they're an elitist, self-centered snob who thinks everyone should play like them.

In terms of play order... hmm, well, it's not easy to really say.  I personally started with Awakening.  After that, I played Heroes of Light and Shadow (Japan-exclusive DS game), then Fates, Shadow Dragon, Echoes, Blazing Sword...  That order worked for me, but you might have different preferences.  Since you have access to various games, I'd just say take them one at a time and maybe space out the time between each game.  It's taken me 5 years to get around to playing through and beating the games that I've beaten so far, and I've downright binged them.  The order won't matter too much.

If it'll help, I'll list the games in order, from top to bottom, the easiest to most difficult games you have in your possession.

  • Awakening - The most challenging thing in this game is the poorly balanced Lunatic modes.  It has Casual Mode, so that contributes to its ease, but even on Classic it's still relatively easy since you can grind indefinitely and have your units level indefinitely thanks to the Second Seal system in the game.  Especially with Spotpass, you can pretty much grind until everyone's at max stats.  Plus, a lot of the maps have simple layouts and the enemies are pretty unremarkable when pitted against your units.
  • Fates: Revelation - If you intend to play all the paths of Fates, you should save this one for last, but honestly there's barely anything challenging about this one apart from how much of a grind it is to complete each map.  The virtue of this path is it essentially being a sandbox for you to use just about all of the units from the other two paths however you want and to experiment.  It's also good for PMUs - "Pick My Unit" runs, which entails you asking a forum to give you a set number of units who are to be leveled and classed certain ways and/or paired with particular other units.
  • Fates: Birthright - IMO, it's kind of a tie between this and Sacred Stones, but Birthright beats it out simply because it has a Casual mode.  It's definitely more of a balanced challenge than Awakening, but it's still kinda on the easier side of things.  Reason it's more difficult than Revelation is because you don't get as many units who fulfill different niches and because there are at least a couple maps that are actually fairly challenging.
  • Sacred Stones - It's a bit of a challenge until you get to the point where enemies spawn in the overworld map.  At that point, you're able to grind as much as you want.  The only reason I count it as more difficult than the previous three is because it has no Casual mode, so the easiest you'll have it will still be "units that die will die for good".
  • Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - This game has challenges, but not necessarily in the best of ways.  It's based on the rather archaic Fire Emblem: Gaiden, which has a number of strange and obtuse design choices born out of the creators basically trying to experiment.  Its difficulty is partly born out of this, partly born out of the characters' crummy growth rates (which are actually improved from the original, believe it or not), and partly born out of the post-game dungeon being a gigantic difficulty spike.  Honestly, the difficulty isn't what's appealing about this game, but it might not be the best game to pick up first.
  • Blazing Sword - Probably one of the best balanced games in the series, this is pretty much a vanilla FE experience.  There's some genuinely good challenge to be had after Lyn mode, and the game will teach you the value of team management.  If you decide to play the Hard modes, be forewarned that it sometimes gets to be downright unfair (those who've played Hector Hard Mode will give you horror stories about Battle Before Dawn, AKA "that chapter where Zephiel won't f***ing stop dying on the second turn").
  • Fates: Conquest - To be totally honest it probably should be down with the other Casual mode games simply because of the existence of its Casual/Phoenix mode, but people don't play Conquest to have an easy time.  People play Conquest because they're masochists who love watching Takumi jam a light arrow straight through Camilla's wyvern repeatedly while a barber shop quartet of pegasus knights dance the Can Can right over the walls and into the defense zone.  The game's difficulty is its single greatest asset.

I don't know where Three Houses would place in this list because I haven't thoroughly beaten the game, but it'd probably be more difficult than... Sacred Stones, I guess.  Maybe Echoes, too, but Echoes is hard to place because it's such a black sheep of the series and comparing it to other FE games is like comparing apples to oranges.

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45 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Fates: Conquest - To be totally honest it probably should be down with the other Casual mode games simply because of the existence of its Casual/Phoenix mode, but people don't play Conquest to have an easy time.  People play Conquest because they're masochists who love watching Takumi jam a light arrow straight through Camilla's wyvern repeatedly while a barber shop quartet of pegasus knights dance the Can Can right over the walls and into the defense zone.  The game's difficulty is its single greatest asset.

This is the greatest summary of Conquest I've ever heard.

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with resetting when you make a mistake in the games with perma-death; there is also absolutely nothing wrong with deciding you can go on without that unit. It really just comes down to how much you value that character, whether it's because you've invested a lot of XP in them or because you really like them and it would make the game less fun to go without them. Iron Man is a self-imposed restriction that people do specifically to make the game harder, it's not considered the "right" way to play the game.

One word of advice I'd give is that Fire Emblem outside of the higher difficulty settings isn't difficult, but it is punishing. The most important skill for these types of games is risk assessment - you have to stop and think about what the worst thing that could happen if you make this move would be, what the odds of that happening are, and if there are better choices available. There are usually a lot of winning options you can take but the game can feel very difficult and frustrating because taking one of the incorrect options will make things go south EXTREMELY quickly. Focus on learning how to play safe first, if you try to play efficiently before you understand that concept you're just gonna end up dying a lot.

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I'd say one of the greatest "pitfalls" with Fire Emblem is thinking you have to keep everyone alive. Once you get rid of that restriction, the games become much more enjoyable. Lost a unit? Think on your feet and figure out a way to fill the gap with what you have left. Of course, this isn't for everyone, but it's definitely a valid playstyle, and the one I personally favor. Fire emblem is a game about war, after all, there would obviously be casualties. You shouldn't feel bad about it.

Higher difficulty settings in FE are generally more tedious than difficult, so I'd recommend playing on lower difficulties first time, and playing harder difficulties if you feel up for it on multiple playthroughs. I recommend Path of Radiance as a good game to play, it's quite easy yet still engaging. 

 

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1 hour ago, Fire Brand said:

I'd say one of the greatest "pitfalls" with Fire Emblem is thinking you have to keep everyone alive. Once you get rid of that restriction, the games become much more enjoyable. Lost a unit? Think on your feet and figure out a way to fill the gap with what you have left. 

Ironman, Hard/Lunatic Mode, No Death, full recruitment runs are #1!!!

No, of course not. You're mostly right. However, keeping everyone alive gives an added challenge, sometimes fun, sometimes torturous, to the game. I wouldn't necessarily say for me this mind set works. Every time I lose a unit and reason is telling me "let it slide!", I just can't. I reset because I like my Fire Emblem games macho. I remember my first Ironman run of Binding Blade (much like Mangs is doing at the time of this post), as few deaths as possible. I only lost 3 units, but some of them were my more useful units. I lost Dieck (ugh), Sue (Sue's ok.), and PERCEVAL (UGHHHH). Probably most people would agree that only 3 units dying in an ironman run is pretty good (Mangs lost like 30lol and counting), but not for me. During the entire run, I was thinking, "aw, shit! Perceval could have done that! Man, if only Dieck was here, he could have helped a lot!" The run wasn't half as fun with those thoughts plaguing me. 

Oh well, even if the 'non-restrictive' FE playstyle isn't for me, I can always laugh at bald Norwegian dudes failing horribly... 

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