My experience with beating h5

[Randomguy4629]

This post is long. You have been warned.

After coming from awakening lunatic, hard three houses, hard conquest, and lunatic birthright+revelations (all on classic) this game’s h5 has been my most challenging fire emblem experience so far, although hard conquest comes close, as well as the early chapters and endgame of lunatic awakening, although to a lesser extent

and my god it was refreshing. The strategic depth and map design was excellent... except for same turn reinforcements, those are awful, I definitely enjoyed chapters without reinforcements more. Looking up the reinforcements became a must later on.

The story was well written, and the brevity of the narrative made the pace of the game exciting; there were few dull moments.

Gaiden chapter requirements are frustrating, but it didn’t bother me too much. I only did 6x and 24x, and while Athena and Nagi both were crucial to my success in their own ways, I quickly stopped using Athena in favor of Caeda. Chapter 6x’s main use for me was training up Caeda’s sword rank as myrmidon.

I went for a low-man strategy, which I’ve done in every fire emblem I’ve played so far to varying degrees. Early game, Marth was a true hero king. He vanquished hordes of enemies with ease from all the exp I was feeding him. The strategy became “army takes one side, marth takes the other” In some moments it felt like I was using Ryoma from Birthright.

This quickly changed however. Lances, bows, javelins and Marth’s lack of promotion quickly started showing. As blessed as he was (I did do some map save reset abuse to get the defense levels I needed for this to work) and believe me he ended up blessed, with 42 hp capped 25str 25speed and 30luck, 21 skill and 16 defense, I needed another strong unit.

Enter Caeda (or Shiida if you prefer). I wrote her off at first, mostly due to low hp and strength combined with bow vulnerability, but once I got to chapter 6x I saw my opportunity to train her. I quickly made her an absolute unit, feeding her more xp than marth since I knew he was going to fall off. Her final stats as swordmaster were 55hp, 21str, 29skill, 30spd, 30lck, 16def and 5 res. I often used her as draco and paladin depending on the chapter. Paladin with Javelin was the bane of bow users everywhere. I fed her most stat boosters, only giving marth a dracoshield and secret book. She ended up carrying the rest of my playthrough. Her best performance was as on a mountain space with marth giving her support for a whopping 67-75 avoid depending on her class. Most hit rates ended up below 50, and true hit made her dodge most attacks.

Lena was my only healer, she got absurd amounts of xp from all the damage marth and caeda would take from h5 foes. I ended up promoting her and using her as a mage and gave her starlight to obtain falchion. I don’t remember where I got an arms scroll but it saved me dearly in getting falchion. Lena’s tome rank was too low and I was glad I saved the arms scroll.

I did not reset for Lena’s stats. She ended up frail to physical damage, but extremely resilient to magical damage with pure water. Sage stats at lv 16: 26hp 3str 22mag, 21spd, 27lck, 5def, 17res. Fed her spirit dusts and speedwings.

Keep in mind I used no wireless features. I’m not even sure if they are still available. Oh and also keep in mind I did reset for some points in defense for Caeda as well. No clock abuse though, just soft resets on some map saves until I was satisfied.

I did the Tiki dies with falchion trick to get to 24x and recruit nagi, and res’d Tiki in endgame with aum for fun.

But Chapter 24 was a nightmare honestly. I lost count of how many resets to a map save I did. Probably the highest reset count I had in any chapter. With only two high hp combat units (I decided not to use Xane for some reason, even though I did play around with him a bit in previous chapters and used him in 24x and endgame) it was only lena’s fortify spam that saved me as I forced marth and caeda through the mountains, tense on the final turn as I was watching the first wave of reinforments closing in. Shiida’s hp was in the single digits and had to dodge a lethal 60 hit attack from a manakete to double and one round it with a wyrmslayer for 27x2 damage; a manakete that was blocking marth’s path to seizing the throne. In the end I was lucky; she dodged gracefully and I was able to end the chapter without warping marth to the throne.

I live for intense, suspenseful, down to the wire moments like these. Not just in fire emblem, but in entertainment in general. And this game’s h5 mode delivers. It’s the same reason why chapter 10 of conquest is so good on the higher difficulties; it really does get down to the wire, with the final wave of enemies crashing down on your units on the last enemy phase, as you pray for a crucial dodge; and afterwards, as you contemplate resetting for a fallen unit, but ultimately decide to move on and preserve your first successful attempt of the chapter.

I could not warp marth to the throne, because I only had 4 warp uses remaining, and needed 1 to warp tiki on top of the aum chest to die, and wanted 3 for endgame. I’m not sure how I knew I needed 3 1 charge warps for endgame but my intuition was spot on and I ended up having to warp caeda in with a forged +5 mt wrymslayer to kill the manakete blocking medeus, nagi to suicide bomb medeus to weaken him, and marth to finish off medeus with falchion.

Definitely the most satisfying endgame I’ve played, and it was only two turns! I decided to have xane imitate lena to warp, and I wanted Elice to bring back Tiki as well. It was functionally a 1 turn but I did have lena die repeatedly to a 41 hit 26 damage ballista and had to reset a few times.

Honorable mentions: Julian as a chest and door opening bot up until the last few chapters, and Wolf and Sedgar as generals. I never fed them much xp but they were useful for some early and early midgame chapters.

Oh and the soundtrack. My god the soundtrack was fantastic. Some of my favorites are Trouble! and the Preparation theme and come join us/together we ride... but the entire soundtrack is superb. Definitely an integral part of why I love this game so much.

[Solvaij]

It's always nice to hear about people enjoying Shadow Dragon! I have never played H5 myself, highest I've beaten as of now is H3, but maybe I'll take another crack at it? I really love this game! Are you planning to give New Mystery a shot?

[Randomguy4629]

1 hour ago, Solvaij said:

It's always nice to hear about people enjoying Shadow Dragon! I have never played H5 myself, highest I've beaten as of now is H3, but maybe I'll take another crack at it? I really love this game! Are you planning to give New Mystery a shot?

I’ll be playing Echoes next actually. Not sure if I’ll ever get into the games that haven’t been officially translated, but maybe once I’m through all the US released games I’ll start on the JP only games. I have a copy of Path of Radiance I should really play through at least once since someone gave it to me a few years ago.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Randomguy4629

[JimmyBeans]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! most people right SD off as bland story and boring gameplay, but I think it excels in both of those categories. It's also a really fun game to iron man, the gaiden requirements make a lot more sense if you look at that way.

[eclipse]

Did you copy-paste this?

Anyway, Caeda trivializes the game thanks to the forge.  Really.

[Randomguy4629]

On 10/16/2019 at 12:16 PM, eclipse said:

Did you copy-paste this?

Anyway, Caeda trivializes the game thanks to the forge.  Really.

I did, that must be why the text is big. Sorry x_x and yeah forging makes Caeda run around one rounding most things and one hitting other things, definitely made the game much easier. I guess my run of this game is a demonstration that it’s not that difficult if you know what to abuse.