How Much Should I Tell my Big Bro on His First Blind Run of FE 4

[Deenward]

My brother is starting off FE 4 totally blind. He doesn't even know there's a second generation with kids and the like. While the in-game save states ensure you can always beat FE4 without much trouble, should I clue him in to mechanics like inheritance, hidden events, and optimal pairs? Or would telling him about stuff like that give away stuff that happens later?

[Ertrick36]

I'm not sure, since I don't know how exactly your brother would enjoy the story.  I think generally speaking the way he'll play will probably play into his favor in terms of inheritance, possibly optimal pairs too as long as he's aware of the ability to check for available conversations and knows to check such things frequently (like, after every castle captured and character recruited).  Generally speaking this will lead you to building a respectable enough 2nd Gen.  Ayra can have a convo with either Lex or Holyn which increases her love points with one of them, for instance, and either option will grant her a great weapon which is perfect for inheritance and make both children great.  You might want to tell him that if he wants to see couples form that he should have them be next to one another at the end of every turn.

As for hidden events... I mean, there is absolutely no way for someone to know about them without either somehow accidentally stumbling upon them or through actually looking them up, but I think they should stay hidden for a first playthrough.  The only exception I say to this is for the Chapter 10 secret for after you defeat Alvis.  For that, I'd say you should hint to it, and only do so once he's gotten to the 2nd Generation.  Tell him something like "When you defeat Alvis, go stand next to water".  Something that's sort of vague, but understandable enough that he'd get what he'd need to do.  I say this because it's a crime that this secret scene is missable.

[Hanes]

Maybe tell him to keep some units together for a bit and that if he does that, the characters will fall in love. Make it seem super important like "Being able to trade gold is incredibly super duper helpful man, once you get it you'll realize" and "Being able to set-up criticals is over-powered, honestly the sooner the better" so that he will pair up certain units. Then when the 2nd gen comes around just tell him that this was the real reason why you had him pair up units.

You can also try to direct him to easier pairings like Lewyn and Tailtyu for example.

Edited June 4, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Jave]

Tell him to save manually at the start of every chapter on one file, and keep the turn auto save on a different file. Maybe also use the other two save files as extras. If he's going in full blind, it's a good idea to have a backup since it's very possible to get stuck in an unwinnable situation if you only use the every turn autosave.

[Konrad the Red]

Don't be an asshole and spoil stuff. Soothsayers exist solely to check love progress and putting units next to each other is the obvious method to improve their connection. If he is not an complete idiot he will figure it out on his own. FE4 is full of ingame tutorials. It's also a very easy game. If he pairs up his units solely on personality seeing how the kids turn out will be even more fun. He can make optimal pairings and trigger all secret events in a second playthrough.

[Yexin]

as i'vs already said in similar threads, i wouldn't tell him anything, it's much more fun to find out things on your own

[Deenward]

Thanks for the input so far. As far as romance specifically goes, he's a bit of a shipping guru, so he's thankfully kinda pieced together how pairing characters together works and what not. I'm really curious to see what kind of combinations he comes up with, lol.

I'm with a lot of people in that I value a totally blind experience with any piece of content. At most, I'll selectively guide him to certain events or scenes in vague, mysterious ways. Thing is, my bro suffer from FOMO a lot and a meaty experience like FE 4 is probably something he'd want to get the most out of. He's the kind of guy who'll reset chapters or runs if he gets too many bad level-ups, or he feels he's not building his units optimally. It might enrich his experience specifically to get to experience some hidden events, especially since characterization for some people is kind of thin in Genealogy.

On the flip-side, what he doesn't know on a blind first playthrough can't hurt him, right? Too much back-seat gaming on my part could railroad the experience in a way that sucks out the enjoyment for him.

[Konrad the Red]

Looks like you're looking at a restart half-way. That might not be a bad thing. While replaying the first half you can tell him what he missed or which pairings you prefer.

[Deenward]

That's true. He's the kind of guy who might enjoy going through stuff again with the hindsight he'd gained from the first run. He recently restarted a Blue Lions run around Chapter 10 because he didn't like how his students were shaping up, so there's precedent for him doing that. 

[Fates-Blade]

The thing is, a player is not likely to find the secrets that's in GoTH without being told.

And what sucks is when a player thinks there's a secret to doing something and there isn't;

so if he doesn't mind playing through a few chapters (or the whole game) again then don't say anything.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Fates-Blade

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

On 6/5/2020 at 12:21 AM, Deenward said:

My brother is starting off FE 4 totally blind. He doesn't even know there's a second generation with kids and the like. While the in-game save states ensure you can always beat FE4 without much trouble, should I clue him in to mechanics like inheritance, hidden events, and optimal pairs? Or would telling him about stuff like that give away stuff that happens later?

let him play fully blind. Genealogy has a huge replay value, especially in terms of iron man runs.

in any case, i suppose letting him know that killing enemies with a specific weapon for 50 times unlocks a weapon's critical chance shouldn't hurt, as much as characters with the passive Critical skill in their own unit's build or weapon setup don't need to farm kills, since they can already crit on their own from the start.

Having lovers and/or family members placed nearby while attacking enemies can also randomly trigger "resonance" critical hits for the attackers.

everything else in terms of game knowledge/lore should be left untold, at least until a 2nd playthrough.

if he really enjoyed the game, he can eventually check all the stuff he missed in his first run, and play it again while coming up with new skills builds, new items builds, new strategies, etc. plus, knowing already how the game will play out, progressing will be a walk in the park compared to the first time.

[Deenward]

9 hours ago, Fenreir said:

let him play fully blind. Genealogy has a huge replay value, especially in terms of iron man runs.

in any case, i suppose letting him know that killing enemies with a specific weapon for 50 times unlocks a weapon's critical chance shouldn't hurt, as much as characters with the passive Critical skill in their own unit's build or weapon setup don't need to farm kills, since they can already crit on their own from the start.

Having lovers and/or family members placed nearby while attacking enemies can also randomly trigger "resonance" critical hits for the attackers.

everything else in terms of game knowledge/lore should be left untold, at least until a 2nd playthrough.

if he really enjoyed the game, he can eventually check all the stuff he missed in his first run, and play it again while coming up with new skills builds, new items builds, new strategies, etc. plus, knowing already how the game will play out, progressing will be a walk in the park compared to the first time.

Yeah, taking all this and the rest of the responses in mind, I'm definitely going to preserve his blindness when it comes to gameplay mechanics tied to the story as much as I can. Realizing how different mechanics work as you play the game and how various features support each other is part of the fun. If he tells me straight up that he'd enjoy it more if he knew how various non-story based game-play mechanics work, I don't think there's any harm in telling him that. The game originally came with an instruction manual that elucidated such details, anyways. Worst case scenario, he restarts, and gets to enjoy making more optimal choices in his second play-through.