Which difficulty is best for someone coming from FE3H?

[renumi]

Heya,

SO I started Awakening a couple years ago but dropped it as I got stuck, but now after playing 3H continously I want to retry it. I played Hard/Classic on FE3H, wondering if I should do the same for this game? I know there are quite a few different strategy choices, like pairing up and the weapon triangle, so that sort of makes me wanna go easier.

Thanks!

[CWGameplay]

Hard/Classic should be good!  Awakening is a really broken game in its design, so often times if you play on Normal mode, the game flies by without much challenge.  On the other hand, Lunatic is kind of stupid, and can feel really impossible if you don't know the few strategies to get through the early game.  Hard/Classic is usually the best way to go!

[Dark Holy Elf]

I will definitely recommend Hard/Classic as well. I have nothing to add to the previous post, which sums it up very nicely.

[Shadow Mir]

Hard/Classic should be manageable. The post above the poster above me sums it up nicely.

[Hawkwing]

Normal is a good choice if you want to play it safe and get an idea of how the mechanics work, though as mentioned earlier it is rather easy to create overpowered units on this difficulty, even by accident. If you want a better challenge, I would recommend grinding sparingly, if at all. Hard is more difficult and enemies actually have similar skills to your own units, though unfortunately it can also get pretty egregious with ambush spawns. Don't be afraid to look up online when and where reinforcements arrive, because the game does a poor job about warning the player about them beyond "this map has reinforcements". Lunatic is pretty infamous for how often the player has to exploit the more broken aspects of the game in order to survive, so I don't recommend starting on that mode.

Awakening lacks any sort of turnwheel/divine pulse mechanic, so if you relied on that in the past,  don't want to be permanently punished for making a mistake while learning about how the game works, and/or don't want to being screwed over by reinforcements, it might be a good idea to give casual a try. Classic isn't a bad idea if you don't mind permadeath or resetting, and while the game isn't perfect in it's handling of permadeath, it is still a fun game to ironman.

 

[Ertrick36]

Hard/Classic, the game will probably seem easier to you than 3H.  Only the beginning might give you difficulty, but if that's the case just make good use of Frederick.  The only other way I see you being challenged by this is through the inability to rewind time.  You might've relied on that more than you think you did, and in this game you'll have to adapt to the fact that you won't be able to rewind time unless you reload the save.

Lunatic/Classic is highly not recommended.  The game will force you to play the game a certain way, and more or less take away most of your individual agency as a player.  It doesn't challenge you in a way that actually improves your strategic abilities, it only challenges you in the sense that you'll need a lot of trial and error just to figure out how to slog through it all.  Also if you feel you can't progress without grinding, you'd actually need SpotPass to grind in Lunatic because all skirmishes on that difficulty setting pit you up against level 20 enemies with max stats and a ridiculous ensemble of skills.  It's overall just not a fun experience, and I say this as someone who's played a lot of games in the series.

[eclipse]

Hard will be rough for the first five chapters or so, but if you already have the basic FE mechanics down (as in, don't put the squishy flying things in front of arrows), you should be fine.  If you're worried about losing units, go Casual.

[SSbardock84]

Yeah, Hard/Classic. If you were fine with it in 3H, you should be fine in Awakening. Awakening is easier imo. I'd almost reccomend Lunatic/Casual though, but if you haven't completed Awakening yet before I won't.

[TheSilentChloey]

As someone who's actually played both games, I can tell you that the mechanics are different and you will find that the less annoying ones- requiring specific weapon levels to get into certain classes are not a thing in Awakening.  Though on the flipside classes are weapon and gender locked as well.

 

You also won't be able to use the divine pulse mechanic either, so unless you are either prepared to reset, go casual if you don't want to lose units, or be punished for mistakes.

 

Chrom is your only option to recruit characters and if he falls in any mode, it is game over, unlike Byleth.  The same as Robin/MU, so you will have to make sure you level them up to counter that.  This game has child units who are recruited by either Chrom or their mother, so there is that to consider as well.  To make the game a little less frustrating there is Galeforce which is one of the best skills in the game, mostly for map clearing purposes.

 

Aside from that...I'd personally do normal mode first, to get a feel for the mechanics in Awakening.  Only once I was comfortable with that then I'd gradually increase the difficulty.

Edited May 31, 2020 by TheSilentChloey

[Sir Gerwald of Vallora]

Normal/Hard + Casual for a first time. Calssic is the way to go after a first playthrough, but you really don't want to miss out on any potential child units or character interaction just because you decided not to reset after said unit died. This is an easier FE game, but can manage to be a pain if you don't lrioritize your units early on.

[SnowFire]

I'll go against the grain and say Hard / Casual.  Normal mode is highly not recommended if you played 3H Hard, Awakening Normal is pretty toothless.  For Casual vs. Classic...  my recommendation is to play "soft Classic" where it's casual mode, but solely for the purpose of being able to reload in-battle saves - self-impose a rule that character death = reset.  Don't abuse the saves for crit farming, getting better level-ups, etc. either.  Rather, use it only to learn about reinforcement timings.  Awakening Hard/Lunatic has dreaded ninja reinforcements (STR), and even worse, reinforcements that can spawn with effective weapons (e.g. Assassins with Bows that show up from nowhere and one shot Sumia).  In-battle save lets you just reload if you get jumped by a particularly unfair reinforcements set.  If you do play on Classic, grab a reference / walkthrough that warns you about reinforcement turns and locations.

[Cat1803]

I echo SnowFire's sentiments. The ambush spawn in Hard and Lunatic(+) can be brutal, but Normal would be a cakewalk compared to 3H Hard.