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Fire Emblem Awakening is the most broken game in the series.


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1 hour ago, sinfonic18 said:

Oh god, are you serious? I don't know if I'm ready to go through ANOTHER FE where swing of a weapon is like playing the lottery.

That isn't the case in FE4-Weight is usually the problem with weapons, as there is no weight-reducing stat. For example, the generic axe weighs (iirc) 18 in FE4, so you lose 18 points of speed while using it.

1 hour ago, sinfonic18 said:

Genealogy isn't as archaic and clunky to the point of unplayability as FE1 is though I'd imagine.

It's different. You cannot trade items, (You have to pawn them off and then buy 'em back with a different unit) each unit has their own money, (Lovers and thieves can exchange money) etc. A lot of people disliked that, but I actually found it to be fine and it makes sense in the context of the game.

Also, DO NOT look up stuff about this game online-You will get spoiled to heck and back. I would instead recommend reading a spoiler free mechanics guide, though. The game is old and isn't great at telling you everything. (Mostly because it came with a guide you were assumed to have read; same thing with Thracia. Thracia was 100% not designed to be played blind.)

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3 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

...What?

Oh god, are you serious? I don't know if I'm ready to go through ANOTHER FE where swing of a weapon is like playing the lottery. Although... Swords and Wind magic being actually good excites me, since there aren't many FEs where those aren't overshadowed. 

Well, mounted units are OP in every FE (seriously, I wish they would rebalance mounted and flying units in the next entry)

As was stated already, in this case, the issue is weight; basically, swords and wind magic have low weight, whereas axes and fire magic are heavy. I would also note that weight is the only difference between wind, fire, and thunder tomes.

I think 3H did manage to curb mounted classes, mostly in the sense that most of them aren't that great as to justify the extra effort. While flying classes are good, the game largely discourages flier spam.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would also note that weight is the only difference between wind, fire, and thunder tomes.

At least the basic tomes, yeah. Thunder magic has some worthwhile tomes unless I am mistaken, but I don't remember anything really good for fire. (Come to think of it, I think you can nab a meteor tome, but I could be wrong.)

That said, aside from being an armour knight*, nothing is truly a death sentence for any unit. Some are better than others, but almost all have merit to being used and are unique to some extent, so you can use whoever the heck you want. (Azelle, for example, starts out as a footlocked fire mage, but he becomes a mage knight upon promotion which helps a lot. And also Lachesis, who starts off weak but promotes into a class that uses EVERY WEAPON TYPE IN THE GAME.)

*You can still use Arden if you want, though.

Maybe we should move this to a different thread, since this one's supposed to be about Wokening...

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On 2/5/2021 at 11:47 PM, Shadow Mir said:

As was stated already, in this case, the issue is weight; basically, swords and wind magic have low weight, whereas axes and fire magic are heavy. I would also note that weight is the only difference between wind, fire, and thunder tomes.

I think 3H did manage to curb mounted classes, mostly in the sense that most of them aren't that great as to justify the extra effort. While flying classes are good, the game largely discourages flier spam.

Alright I'm going to try and put all my thoughts into this one post so I don't spam and clutter this guy's topic with another topic. XD Anyway, I getcha. But, why does weight even matter if you can't double without a skill equipped? You don't have to be worried about being weighed down like in other games if you don't have Pursuit.

That's a very good point I guess. That and some of the late game maps have anti-mount terrain. But none of that effects the infamous Wyvern lord. Falcon Knight in 3h is extremely hard to get to but WL isn't since you'll already have the requirements by the time you get to Lvl. 30 from being in WR. Dark Knight is also a master class worth getting into but is harder to get than WL. But I agree, as with the rest, non-mounted advanced classes are better. 

The type of nerf I honestly want to see is a movement nerf. Bump all mounted classes down to 7 or 6 MOV and keep foot classes at the same move. And bump classes like General and Sage to 6-7 MOV. This is unrealistic and takes the niche from mounted units though and would not go well with people, so it's just a pipe dream for now.
 

On 2/6/2021 at 1:13 AM, Benice said:

At least the basic tomes, yeah. Thunder magic has some worthwhile tomes unless I am mistaken, but I don't remember anything really good for fire. (Come to think of it, I think you can nab a meteor tome, but I could be wrong.)

That said, aside from being an armour knight*, nothing is truly a death sentence for any unit. Some are better than others, but almost all have merit to being used and are unique to some extent, so you can use whoever the heck you want. (Azelle, for example, starts out as a footlocked fire mage, but he becomes a mage knight upon promotion which helps a lot. And also Lachesis, who starts off weak but promotes into a class that uses EVERY WEAPON TYPE IN THE GAME.)

*You can still use Arden if you want, though.

Maybe we should move this to a different thread, since this one's supposed to be about Wokening...

Bolting?

I won't ask what class that is that can use every weapon, as I don't want to spoil myself (I am curious though). But FE4 sounds a lot like FE13. 

But yes I agree, I got us off topic, way, way off topic. Sorry about that!

On 2/5/2021 at 8:27 PM, Maof06 said:

Look, Awakening and Genealogy are my favorite games in the franchise, so I can say as someone who is familiar with both: they are practically on the same level. It is no exaggeration to say that the first part of FE4 comes down to "Sigurd kills everyone while the rest tries to help as much as they can". If you play your cards right during the inheritance, the second generation will be even easier. You just have to play Seliph / Leif / Ares / Forseti user in the middle of the map and enemies will commit suicide on them, and you will never have a problem with money. Of course, there are some moments with Kaga difficulty, but they're few and far between, and it's more annoying than hard itself. Besides, the arena can be used by anyone to grind and no one dies if they lose, so thanks to the game's deterministic RNG you can complete it with all the characters if you have patience.

FE4 is hard carried by it's story, which imo is still unmatched to this day.

Well they sound familiar in story too with 2 generations of characters you can use. 

I keep hearing you can use how many units you want, does that game not have a deployment limit or what? 

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9 minutes ago, sinfonic18 said:

But, why does weight even matter if you can't double without a skill equipped? You don't have to be worried about being weighed down like in other games if you don't have Pursuit.

It doesn't for that unit-The problem is mostly that someone else can be doubling.

Avoid also does matter, I suppose. Most units who use axes probably don't care about dodging, though.

9 minutes ago, sinfonic18 said:

Bolting?

It's been a long while and I could be confusing it with Thracia, but I recall the player being able to grab a Meteor early on-ish. I don't recall Bolting, though.

9 minutes ago, sinfonic18 said:

I won't ask what class that is that can use every weapon, as I don't want to spoil myself (I am curious though). But FE4 sounds a lot like FE13. 

In many ways it is. (It's not really a spoiler, but Lachesis is kind of the Est of this game, so it is an investment to see it wreak havoc.)

9 minutes ago, sinfonic18 said:


I keep hearing you can use how many units you want, does that game not have a deployment limit or what? 

No deployment limit! Each chapter starts with none of your units on the field, all of them starting in your home castle. You basically choose your deployment slots and formation.

 

Again, if you do want to try FE4, I would advocate for reading this spoiler-free mechanics guide, as well as the top comment by Mekkah. It explains the mechanics well, (It sounds overwhelming, but it's not too much in practice) and there are some things that the game doesn't tell you and won't make sense without this guide.

Edited by Benice
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3 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

Alright I'm going to try and put all my thoughts into this one post so I don't spam and clutter this guy's topic with another topic. XD Anyway, I getcha. But, why does weight even matter if you can't double without a skill equipped? You don't have to be worried about being weighed down like in other games if you don't have Pursuit.

That's a very good point I guess. That and some of the late game maps have anti-mount terrain. But none of that effects the infamous Wyvern lord. Falcon Knight in 3h is extremely hard to get to but WL isn't since you'll already have the requirements by the time you get to Lvl. 30 from being in WR. Dark Knight is also a master class worth getting into but is harder to get than WL. But I agree, as with the rest, non-mounted advanced classes are better. 

It doesn't, but as stated already, the issue is that you might get doubled.

What class path are you assuming is being followed? One that goes through a lot of axe classes? Because I don't see how Wyvern Lord is easier to achieve when Falcon Knight only has a B+ flying requirement as opposed to Wyvern Lord's A. I disagree on Dark Knight being a worthwhile master class, too, largely because compared to Gremory, it requires too much work with not enough payoff to make up for it.

Edited by Shadow Mir
Accidentally posted before I was done typing
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8 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

Well they sound familiar in story too with 2 generations of characters you can use. 

Yeah, Awakening is tries to take all of the best parts about Genealogy and push it into one game, along with other FE story tropes.

Spoiler

You have two generations and the evil cult hellbent on reviving their evil dragon god. Add in eugenics, genocide and waifus and you've got a game that looks a lot like Genealogy on the surface. The characters, context, and time travel clearly make it different, but there's a lot there that's the same.

YMMV if they succeeded.

In addition to the game mechanics guide, I advise you to read about the pairings guide by Mekkah here.

Edited by Maof06
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23 hours ago, Benice said:

It doesn't for that unit-The problem is mostly that someone else can be doubling.

Avoid also does matter, I suppose. Most units who use axes probably don't care about dodging, though.

It's been a long while and I could be confusing it with Thracia, but I recall the player being able to grab a Meteor early on-ish. I don't recall Bolting, though.

In many ways it is. (It's not really a spoiler, but Lachesis is kind of the Est of this game, so it is an investment to see it wreak havoc.)

No deployment limit! Each chapter starts with none of your units on the field, all of them starting in your home castle. You basically choose your deployment slots and formation.

 

Again, if you do want to try FE4, I would advocate for reading this spoiler-free mechanics guide, as well as the top comment by Mekkah. It explains the mechanics well, (It sounds overwhelming, but it's not too much in practice) and there are some things that the game doesn't tell you and won't make sense without this guide.

Ah, of course! I'm dumb. I totally forgot about the risk of getting doubled yourself. Weight effects avoid? I was today years old when I learned that.

On to the the deployment: That is SO DAMN cool! I haven't tried it yet but the mechanic sounds amazing and they should definitely try and bring that back in some form in future FE titles. I can't count how many times I've had set aside some of my favorite units for a measly thief to take their place. Haha, of course I haven't played it yet so it may be more flawed than I think it is. 

Well it isn't IF I try FE4 it's when. I have yet to play any of them released only in Japan except FE6 and 10 and that's because I have no idea if there is a fan localization for the games or not. I managed to snag a repro DS cart of the remake for FE1 about a week ago because I figured since it was a remake it fixed a lot what was wrong with FE1. It's beautifully translated but I have yet to touch it. Might try FE4 first. 

20 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

It doesn't, but as stated already, the issue is that you might get doubled.

What class path are you assuming is being followed? One that goes through a lot of axe classes? Because I don't see how Wyvern Lord is easier to achieve when Falcon Knight only has a B+ flying requirement as opposed to Wyvern Lord's A. I disagree on Dark Knight being a worthwhile master class, too, largely because compared to Gremory, it requires too much work with not enough payoff to make up for it.

Yes. Take Hilda or maybe Petra for instance. They both have boons in axes and Petra also has one in flying so they can develop their axe rank without needing tutoring by going Fighter < Brigand < WR < WL. And while they go through those you can tutor the lance and flying rank needed for it. Once you get to WR you can grind for like, 10 minutes tops and instantly reach the required ranks to promote. At least that was my experience in my 6 playthroughs and I used them both in WL twice. As with FK there isn't an advanced class to bridge the gap between Pegasus Knight and Falcon Knight to develop those skills quickly except Swordmaster maybe but then you won't get the lance and flying ranks leveled up that you need. Not to mention SM needs an A rank in swords to even get that. Yeah there is dark flier with DLC but that's a magic class. 

Dark Knight gives you double Dark tomefaire for lysithea which makes her even more of a machine than she already is. Dark Knight in my opinion is worth it solely for that, the double tomefaires you can eventually have if you get Reason to s+ which is pretty easy with her. Gremory only gives 2x uses for magic which in my experience is useless since enemy count in 3H isn't that much. Other units maybe not worth it but for her it definitely is if you want more power over longevity. 

My personal experience though. Not saying I'm right which I'm probably not, but mounted units are still too op for me in 3H.

17 hours ago, Maof06 said:

Yeah, Awakening is tries to take all of the best parts about Genealogy and push it into one game, along with other FE story tropes.

  Reveal hidden contents

You have two generations and the evil cult hellbent on reviving their evil dragon god. Add in eugenics, genocide and waifus and you've got a game that looks a lot like Genealogy on the surface. The characters, context, and time travel clearly make it different, but there's a lot there that's the same.

YMMV if they succeeded.

In addition to the game mechanics guide, I advise you to read about the pairings guide by Mekkah here.

Thanks for this. I'll be sure to read these guides you and Benice gave me for my playthrough of the game.

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7 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

Ah, of course! I'm dumb. I totally forgot about the risk of getting doubled yourself.

True, although generic enemies don't usually have pursuit. I meant more compared to other units on your side, but both are true!

Speaking of, make sure you save right before seizing a castle, because this game has ambush spawns that are generally triggered by the seizing of a castle.

7 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

Weight effects avoid? I was today years old when I learned that.

Well, it reduces your speed, which in turn effects avoid. (For example, a unit with 20 speed with nothing equipped could have, say, 40 avoid, whereas with an 18 weight weapon, it'll be 4, since your speed will have dropped to 2.) Speed DOES get registered into the negatives, so a unit with -4 speed can still double enemies if they have pursuit.

7 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

I have yet to play any of them released only in Japan except FE6 and 10 and that's because I have no idea if there is a fan localization for the games or not.

For FE4, you'll probably want to use the Project Naga fanslation. As far as I know, it's the best and most up-to-date one out there!

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10 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

I totally forgot about the risk of getting doubled yourself. Weight effects avoid? I was today years old when I learned that.

In the games where it's a thing, which is most of them, weapon weight affects your speed. In Genealogy, as well as some other games, weapon weight is directly taken out of your speed (which determines avoid), meaning that your Attack Speed is (Speed-Weapon weight). For more on this, look here:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Attack_speed

I would also note that Genealogy allows attack speed to fall into the negatives, whereas other games do not.

10 hours ago, sinfonic18 said:

Yes. Take Hilda or maybe Petra for instance. They both have boons in axes and Petra also has one in flying so they can develop their axe rank without needing tutoring by going Fighter < Brigand < WR < WL. And while they go through those you can tutor the lance and flying rank needed for it. Once you get to WR you can grind for like, 10 minutes tops and instantly reach the required ranks to promote. At least that was my experience in my 6 playthroughs and I used them both in WL twice. As with FK there isn't an advanced class to bridge the gap between Pegasus Knight and Falcon Knight to develop those skills quickly except Swordmaster maybe but then you won't get the lance and flying ranks leveled up that you need. Not to mention SM needs an A rank in swords to even get that. Yeah there is dark flier with DLC but that's a magic class. 

Dark Knight gives you double Dark tomefaire for lysithea which makes her even more of a machine than she already is. Dark Knight in my opinion is worth it solely for that, the double tomefaires you can eventually have if you get Reason to s+ which is pretty easy with her. Gremory only gives 2x uses for magic which in my experience is useless since enemy count in 3H isn't that much. Other units maybe not worth it but for her it definitely is if you want more power over longevity. 

My personal experience though. Not saying I'm right which I'm probably not, but mounted units are still too op for me in 3H.

...Aaaaand what about other characters, like Ingrid? Or, for a better example, Yuri, who has a weakness in axes and flying? Anyway, considering the fact that good flying battalions are limited, I'd probably find myself limiting the amount of flying units I use anyway.

That's assuming you get to S+, which I consider an extremely iffy proposition, at least if you're not playing New Game+. And there's the fact that qualifying for Dark Knight means spreading yourself thin, as you have to train Riding, Lances (which Lysithea has a weakness in), and Reason, and you're probably not going to neglect Authority or Faith either. That is 5 skills you're training. And for all this investment, you get.... a measly 2 points more damage compared to Gremory. Worth it, that is NOT.

I specifically mean cavalry units when I talk about mounted units, and aside from Bow Knight, I find most cavalry classes lackluster, including Dark Knight.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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On 2/8/2021 at 10:47 AM, Benice said:

True, although generic enemies don't usually have pursuit. I meant more compared to other units on your side, but both are true!

Speaking of, make sure you save right before seizing a castle, because this game has ambush spawns that are generally triggered by the seizing of a castle.

Well, it reduces your speed, which in turn effects avoid. (For example, a unit with 20 speed with nothing equipped could have, say, 40 avoid, whereas with an 18 weight weapon, it'll be 4, since your speed will have dropped to 2.) Speed DOES get registered into the negatives, so a unit with -4 speed can still double enemies if they have pursuit.

For FE4, you'll probably want to use the Project Naga fanslation. As far as I know, it's the best and most up-to-date one out there!

All great pointers for going into one of my most unknown FE games!

Project Naga... Got it. Is it a patch like FE6 or is it it's standalone rom? 

On 2/8/2021 at 12:25 PM, Shadow Mir said:

In the games where it's a thing, which is most of them, weapon weight affects your speed. In Genealogy, as well as some other games, weapon weight is directly taken out of your speed (which determines avoid), meaning that your Attack Speed is (Speed-Weapon weight). For more on this, look here:

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Attack_speed

I would also note that Genealogy allows attack speed to fall into the negatives, whereas other games do not.

You see, for the longest time I thought Luck determined Avoid as well as critical chances like it does actually. I never once thought weight-speed determined that. I wish I would've known this 5 games ago, I would've had an easier time if I knew what I was doing! XD

Too be honest for this reason alone I kind of dislike weight and do appreciate how Awakening removed it, but it's a unique mechanic to FE so I can see the reason for bringing it back. 

I gotcha on all this, though.

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26 minutes ago, sinfonic18 said:

Project Naga... Got it. Is it a patch like FE6 or is it it's standalone rom? 

It's a patch like FE6's translation. It's a little more complicated due to Headered/Unheadered roms, but a little tinkering should do it. (IIRC You'll need Lunar IPS to patch the ROM.)

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Ok, I read this thread and am a bit agitated. Awakening and Genealogy are nothing alike, especially not in difficulty.

Genealogy is my undisputed favourite out of 11(?) FE games I played. Awakening is my least favourite. I don't even call it Awakening usually, but Waifu Emblem. The kind of Emblem I hate)))

Are they both easy? Depends. Awakening was very easy after a point. Unlimited exp, money and promotion items? Damn. What's the point of having 100500 characters then??? Everyone will cap, everyone will be the same, as you can freely move across classes. I can't recall a single name of a single unit. Granted, I never finished it. Got bored somewhere, maybe endgame, not sure. I remember nothing about the story. All I remember is breeding units to recruit into existing army and looking for random battles to cap some levels/stats. that's it.

Is Genealogy a difficult game then? No, I wouldn't say it's particularly difficult, but wouldn't say it's too easy. I'm talking about blind runs only. It makes no sense to talk about game difficulty if one has done multiple runs. 99.9% of the games will be very easy once you know it inside out.
SInce I only ever beat 2 FE games, I gotta use Three Houses as example. My blind run was on Hard, and it felt quite easy. Second run was NG+ Maddening and it felt very easy after a certain point. NG Maddening felt like the right difficulty, but even then I could grind skills almost as much as I want, so past a certain point my units got real powerful in comparison to enemies.
At the same time, if my blind run was on Maddening, I would've struggled a lot due to not fully understanding original mechanics, and small techniques.

Genealogy is same. It's easy once you know what's up. Like knowing the locations of certain items that have 0 clues ingame. Like knowing what's awaiting and planning for it. Kaga said the best difficulty for Genealogy is a commoner run. That throws out all the things people complain as being game breaking in the latter half. And of course that's not going to happen on a blind run. Unless the player comes somewhat prepared already, spoiled on certain things. Equivalent to playing with a guide by your side. Any SRPG is easy with a guide. Just do what it says.

Sure, you can really break the balance in Genealogy, but you got to know how to do it first. Braindead "Sigurd charges and wins" will have you hitting a brick wall later on. People who do that avoid hitting the wall because they know what's coming and can invest in solving the issue beforehand, while braindead Sigurd charges. Besides, what's fun about that? You got plenty of unique characters, all with potential to be aces (if you work for it), limited finances, unique mechanics, why fall back to "Sigurd goes brrr"? Might as well leave a save right before the end credits and skip to it. What's the point of playing a game with grand plot, rich characters, unique implementation of lore and challenging options if you just want to press a button and win? Which you can only do if you already know the game. Unlike Awakening the Waifu Instinct. Enemy spawns assure you getting all the exp you might ever need just by looking at the map. You don't need to know about it beforehand. It's right there.

Honestly, try a blind run. See your rank at the end. Look up some guides only after it and see how many cool tactics and events you missed. And then tell me "yeah man, Genealogy was so easy, I don't remember anything from it". If you do that, then I'll retrieve to my cave I crawled out of and start wetting my pillow in frustration as I won't have any arguments for you)))
In you case you read this far and forgot, "Awakening Waifu Emblem was so easy I don't even remember anything, and got bored knowing I can beat it any time" is what I'm saying here. Genealogy though, I got legit stuck on final map on my very first playthrough, back in 1996. I still remember it. Half my army useless, a quarter dead. Only 2~3 units able to go against enemies and not lose, and I didn't even get to see final boss that time. Restarted from beginning. Arden was level 2 or 3, btw))
Now I call Arden "The Beast of Bridges and Keeps" and can do a lot of things in Genealogy. Still replaying it and really using my head and knowledge for ranked runs. Unlike Waifening. Lost all hope for the franchise back then. In no small part due to difficulty as well as "you must love waifus" approach in the face. Just not my cup of tea)))

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On 2/16/2021 at 11:11 AM, IshiharaS said:

Ok, I read this thread and am a bit agitated. Awakening and Genealogy are nothing alike, especially not in difficulty.

Genealogy is my undisputed favourite out of 11(?) FE games I played. Awakening is my least favourite. I don't even call it Awakening usually, but Waifu Emblem. The kind of Emblem I hate)))

Are they both easy? Depends. Awakening was very easy after a point. Unlimited exp, money and promotion items? Damn. What's the point of having 100500 characters then??? Everyone will cap, everyone will be the same, as you can freely move across classes. I can't recall a single name of a single unit. Granted, I never finished it. Got bored somewhere, maybe endgame, not sure. I remember nothing about the story. All I remember is breeding units to recruit into existing army and looking for random battles to cap some levels/stats. that's it.

Is Genealogy a difficult game then? No, I wouldn't say it's particularly difficult, but wouldn't say it's too easy. I'm talking about blind runs only. It makes no sense to talk about game difficulty if one has done multiple runs. 99.9% of the games will be very easy once you know it inside out.
SInce I only ever beat 2 FE games, I gotta use Three Houses as example. My blind run was on Hard, and it felt quite easy. Second run was NG+ Maddening and it felt very easy after a certain point. NG Maddening felt like the right difficulty, but even then I could grind skills almost as much as I want, so past a certain point my units got real powerful in comparison to enemies.
At the same time, if my blind run was on Maddening, I would've struggled a lot due to not fully understanding original mechanics, and small techniques.

Genealogy is same. It's easy once you know what's up. Like knowing the locations of certain items that have 0 clues ingame. Like knowing what's awaiting and planning for it. Kaga said the best difficulty for Genealogy is a commoner run. That throws out all the things people complain as being game breaking in the latter half. And of course that's not going to happen on a blind run. Unless the player comes somewhat prepared already, spoiled on certain things. Equivalent to playing with a guide by your side. Any SRPG is easy with a guide. Just do what it says.

Sure, you can really break the balance in Genealogy, but you got to know how to do it first. Braindead "Sigurd charges and wins" will have you hitting a brick wall later on. People who do that avoid hitting the wall because they know what's coming and can invest in solving the issue beforehand, while braindead Sigurd charges. Besides, what's fun about that? You got plenty of unique characters, all with potential to be aces (if you work for it), limited finances, unique mechanics, why fall back to "Sigurd goes brrr"? Might as well leave a save right before the end credits and skip to it. What's the point of playing a game with grand plot, rich characters, unique implementation of lore and challenging options if you just want to press a button and win? Which you can only do if you already know the game. Unlike Awakening the Waifu Instinct. Enemy spawns assure you getting all the exp you might ever need just by looking at the map. You don't need to know about it beforehand. It's right there.

Honestly, try a blind run. See your rank at the end. Look up some guides only after it and see how many cool tactics and events you missed. And then tell me "yeah man, Genealogy was so easy, I don't remember anything from it". If you do that, then I'll retrieve to my cave I crawled out of and start wetting my pillow in frustration as I won't have any arguments for you)))
In you case you read this far and forgot, "Awakening Waifu Emblem was so easy I don't even remember anything, and got bored knowing I can beat it any time" is what I'm saying here. Genealogy though, I got legit stuck on final map on my very first playthrough, back in 1996. I still remember it. Half my army useless, a quarter dead. Only 2~3 units able to go against enemies and not lose, and I didn't even get to see final boss that time. Restarted from beginning. Arden was level 2 or 3, btw))
Now I call Arden "The Beast of Bridges and Keeps" and can do a lot of things in Genealogy. Still replaying it and really using my head and knowledge for ranked runs. Unlike Waifening. Lost all hope for the franchise back then. In no small part due to difficulty as well as "you must love waifus" approach in the face. Just not my cup of tea)))

I initially got involved in this thread because the OP's statements basically amounted to "Awakening is easy if you grind" (considering that he mentioned stuff like having both Sumia and Chrom capped, as well as Galeforce Inigo, neither of which will happen without a lot of grinding). Even if this is true, a lot of FE games allow grinding in one fashion or another, so this isn't exclusive to Awakening. Also, grinding in Awakening is much less feasible on harder difficulties, and all but unfeasible on Lunatic unless you have DLC.

Anyway, for starters, Genealogy is bar none the most dominated game in the franchise, in no small part thanks to its colossal maps. This also devalues infantry units, as it doesn't matter how good your stats are if you can't make it to the action, to say nothing of poor Arden and Hannibal, who are in the absolute worst game to be an armored unit in. Even though some of the cavalry units look lousy, particularly when compared to Sigurd, they're mobile enough to keep up with him, and thus are likely to see use, which is why the game earned the moniker "Horse Emblem". Now, this could be fixed if you have your mounts slow down, but given the fact that the game has a tendency to have bandits start near villages, that's a rather impractical notion, and the big maps only make it even worse of one. Speaking of, Sigurd is a big reason why Genealogy is considered broken - he has everything needed to dominate the game, particularly Pursuit, Holy Blood, and a horse. Oh, and he gets a powerful weapon that he's the best user of (which just so happens to be one of the best weapon types)... in the prologue, because why not? What the heck is the point of me being able to deploy everyone when I get a unit that eclipses everyone else from the word go?!? Robin didn't start out making everyone else look like chumps.

RE: hidden stuff, a lot of games have stuff you won't figure out without a guide. For example, Fates (particularly Birthright). The game does not tell you at all that Kaze will die if he does not have an A support with Corrin before clearing chapter 15. I consider this rather egregious compared to a lot of the series' other Guide Dang Its because abruptly losing a unit that you might have invested a lot on would suck.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I initially got involved in this thread because the OP's statements basically amounted to "Awakening is easy if you grind" (considering that he mentioned stuff like having both Sumia and Chrom capped, as well as Galeforce Inigo, neither of which will happen without a lot of grinding). Even if this is true, a lot of FE games allow grinding in one fashion or another, so this isn't exclusive to Awakening. Also, grinding in Awakening is much less feasible on harder difficulties, and all but unfeasible on Lunatic unless you have DLC.

Nice. Let me deal with your reply in parts. The grinding.
Any game with experience points does offer some kind of grinding options, not just FE. What I focused on was the easiness for recognizing potential grind spots on the very first playthrough.
Games like Awakening, Holy Evil Shining Stones, or Tear Ring Saga, they all have common feature. You do not need to know beforehand the places and situations you can exploit, nor do you need to make adjustments on the fly when you recognise the potential for grind mid battle. All you have to do is open the overworld and you'll see game showing you unlimited exp points. That's what I meant. It's far easier to access compared to blind playthrough of Genealogy. Or take original Tactics Ogre (snes/ps1 port) for example. It literally has Training menu after completeng first two maps which are carried by NPCs you don't even get to order around. Spend a dozen hours, get mc to around level 18~20, and literally solo every single map. No one takes that to claim that original Tactics Ogre is broken. But no one can deny that the grind is one of the easiest in it. You can literally put in auto pilot, go do your thing, come back in evening, and boom. OP units.
If you had to know a certain spot and technique to do that though, it would be more difficult to perform. That's what I'm getting at.
And as far as I remember, didn't Lunatic and Lunatic+ require you to beat the game first in Awakening? So that ain't happening on the blind run.

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyway, for starters, Genealogy is bar none the most dominated game in the franchise, in no small part thanks to its colossal maps. This also devalues infantry units, as it doesn't matter how good your stats are if you can't make it to the action, to say nothing of poor Arden and Hannibal, who are in the absolute worst game to be an armored unit in. Even though some of the cavalry units look lousy, particularly when compared to Sigurd, they're mobile enough to keep up with him, and thus are likely to see use, which is why the game earned the moniker "Horse Emblem". Now, this could be fixed if you have your mounts slow down, but given the fact that the game has a tendency to have bandits start near villages, that's a rather impractical notion, and the big maps only make it even worse of one.

Everyone's favourite point to bring up. The horsies.
Also the point I truly do not understand in full. I can think of exactly two maps each having one section where you're forced to leave infantry behind if you want to receive bonuses. That's it. Total of 20 turns max. In the whole game. For bonuses one doesn't even need. Start of chapter 2 and start of chapter 10.
So I fail to see any reasons to favour mounted units over infantry in all other cases. Size of the maps is brought up, but it's not like you have to traverse it from side to side and back without stopping. The objective is usually right there. Or there are multiple fronts opened simultaneously. So why abandon the infantry in a blind run? I don't know. In fact, one of my favourite tactics was to form a wall of infantry to stop the initial charge and breach the enemy line with hit-and-away cavalry to later encircle and annihilate the enemy forces. Works just fine.
That said, if we're talking about ranked runs things do change. It is true that in order to minimise the turn count you'll be forced to leave 60~70% of combat to cavalry. How many people do ranked runs on blind playthrough? Not that many if any. It will require a complete guide to follow, which means player will know exactly what's up. As I mentioned, knowing what's to come and not knowing are two big differences affecting the overall difficulty.
Ardan and Hannibal do have a disadvantage. But so what? Two units. Out of 40. Each has a specific place they can shine at. All one needs is to have lvl 5 Ardan to march straight north in chapter 3 with a brave sword or pursuit ring or both, to have enemy hordes suicide against him later on in the chapter while you're doing something else. Hannibal can singlehandedly deal with besiegement in chapter 9. That's quite enough in my opinion. Taking up tasks that would require other units to be used and thus interfering with overall plans.
So to summarize, I fail to see any need to fix anything about the cavalry in blind runs. Or even in ranked runs. Speaking of which we get to the hottest topic.

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, Sigurd is a big reason why Genealogy is considered broken - he has everything needed to dominate the game, particularly Pursuit, Holy Blood, and a horse. Oh, and he gets a powerful weapon that he's the best user of (which just so happens to be one of the best weapon types)... in the prologue, because why not? What the heck is the point of me being able to deploy everyone when I get a unit that eclipses everyone else from the word go?!? Robin didn't start out making everyone else look like chumps.

Sigurd. This is the point of utmost confusion for me. People claiming Genealogy is broken because Sigurd exists and is supposedly enough to dominate the game.
I don't hear the same people saying "Man, Shadow Dragon is broken, You have Jaegan from chapter 1 man, why would you even deploy anyone when you can dominate the first half of the game just with Jaegan". It's the same thing to me. "Man, Genealogy is broken. Remember Jaegan from FE1? They renamed him Sigurd and you can dominate the first half of the game with him. You don't have any access to him in the main portion, but it's still enough to call the whole game broken."
It just doesn't make any sense to me. Not only Sigurd is physically unable to fight on multiple fronts, which are very much a thing in Genealogy, he can't really solo absolutely everything with that nice silver sword he got. He still needs other units, even to perform game breaking glitch. And the more you rely on him, the more struggles await in main portion.
The same people who say Sigurd carries the first half tend to have other units busy making love, gathering items, getting stat boosts and farming exp. Sigurd is only there to push the siege button once everyone else is ready. All that in order to have an easy main portion. It ain't SIgurd who makes second half easy (if one wants to, not required at all, even not taken into account by Kaga when balancing the second half. As he said, main portion is designed with commoners run in mind, with no second generation babies apart from auto pairings), it's everyone else.
So let's talk about his replacement. Secil. If one is kind of player to be keen on efficiency and speed, to utilise cavalry over infantry, then the one will realise that Secil doesn't have any time for combat. He's needed in too many places asap to bother with actual fighting. So it doesn't matter if he can take out regiments alone, he won't even be there. Busy running around with Leif "The Resquer" and "Leg Ring Dancer". It falls to others to get in positions and actually take out main bodies of enemies. Secil can't even face Allion and his men, or Ishthor on his own. Ishthor only needs to double him from 10 tiles away to show you the Game Over screen. Which is very much a thing that can happen. So Secil doesn't really dominate anything even on ranked runs where you also need exp for everyone. Not just cavalry.
On casual blind runs Secil is just another unit you can rely on to take out a certain enemy in a turn to help others. Like Jaegan. Even that isn't limited to him. Oyfey, Shannan, Ares, Lief (if he promotes around turn 5 in chapter 8), etc. And those units have other roles to fullfill in ranked runs. Like Shanna being the de facto thief with the thief sword in commoner run cuz Daisy sucks. Lief being "The Resquer" and Ares being the final trump card when you're stuck against Ishtal or something. So the neo-Sigurd ain't much of a deal. Even if he does promote on the very first turn of chapter 7. If he doesn't, you have your infantry lord forcing everyone to keep pace with him.
So to summarize, if I don't plan to waste exp on Jaegan why would I waste it on Sigurd? A very strange argument to me that Sigurd breaks the game. Throw in the grinding portion, and you could say any unit breaks any game, but somehow it's Genealogy getting the flak.

 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

RE: hidden stuff, a lot of games have stuff you won't figure out without a guide. For example, Fates (particularly Birthright). The game does not tell you at all that Kaze will die if he does not have an A support with Corrin before clearing chapter 15. I consider this rather egregious compared to a lot of the series' other Guide Dang Its because abruptly losing a unit that you might have invested a lot on would suck.

Yeah, plenty of games have hidden content. I don't see the point. Hidden content in Genealogy makes life a lot easier. Almost at level of gaining extra units. Like, who would consider Lex a strong unit without that brave axe? Or Leif an S class fighter from the get go without the pursuit ring? Difference is huge. Blind runs won't have those items.
I have no idea who the characters you mentioned are, never touched Fates. So you lose a unit. Happens. You can lose a unit to one mistake in Genealogy too if you didn't pay enough attention. Especially in main portion where revival isn't even close to being guaranteed depending on how you play. I saw a guy lose both Fee and Altena on his blind run. With no revival option. Fee died in chapter 6, meaning he never had a flier to do the flier stuff. Like going on solo support missions. That changed the difficulty alright. Sure, you can reset, but so can you reset Fates. Go back to a save a couple chapters back if you're that invested in Robin, or whatever the character you lost might be. Don't have a separate save file? Can't help you. Same with Genealogy.

Overall my argument boils down to "enjoy the game the way it was intended to". Just because one can perform credits warp in half an hour for FF6 doesn't mean that's the way people enjoy the game. People do it for records on any% speedruns, but play the actual game in a totally different manner. And no one says FF6 is broken. Though you can do insane stuff apart from credit warps.
As for comparison between Genealogy and Awakening, it's the comparative easiness to dominate the game without any prior knowledge, just by looking at the map. That's the difference.

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On 2/16/2021 at 2:11 PM, IshiharaS said:

99.9% of the games will be very easy once you know it inside out.

this honestly kills most of the discussion in this thread (and actually the entire board) with regards to difficulty lol. of course it's easy when you are prepared, duh. and then when it's not easy even when you ARE, it's because it's chance-based, and then people complain it's not real difficulty. well, real difficulty never survives the test of repeated playthroughs, so games will never be difficult to you after a while. DIFFICULT PILLS TO SWALLOW.

anyway, the question isn't which game is easier, but whether awakening is the most broken game in the series (aka, which game can be the most easily exploited in its mechanics to have its difficulty trivialised beyond the ways the developers probably intended), and whoever is saying any other game instead is living in jumanji. you have the possibility to break awakening in a way you absolutely can't with genealogy. it's just that the latter kind of gives whichever broken-ness it has to you on a silver platter, while the former's broken-ness isn't immediately obvious to a first time player who might try to play the game normally.

i just finished a new playthrough of awakening in record time because i never did play awakening to break it before as it kind of goes against my fire emblem instincts, but now i did and it's scary how quickly shit snowballs in this game. and i didn't even use female robin and settled for chrom/sumia instead. lucina and cynthia still trivialised the second half of the game. genealogy has NOTHING like that, specially not gen 2 where seliph starts out weaker than sigurd.

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On 2/17/2021 at 4:11 AM, IshiharaS said:

Ok, I read this thread and am a bit agitated. Awakening and Genealogy are nothing alike, especially not in difficulty.

Genealogy is my undisputed favourite out of 11(?) FE games I played. Awakening is my least favourite. I don't even call it Awakening usually, but Waifu Emblem. The kind of Emblem I hate)))

Are they both easy? Depends. Awakening was very easy after a point. Unlimited exp, money and promotion items? Damn. What's the point of having 100500 characters then??? Everyone will cap, everyone will be the same, as you can freely move across classes. I can't recall a single name of a single unit. Granted, I never finished it. Got bored somewhere, maybe endgame, not sure. I remember nothing about the story. All I remember is breeding units to recruit into existing army and looking for random battles to cap some levels/stats. that's it.

Is Genealogy a difficult game then? No, I wouldn't say it's particularly difficult, but wouldn't say it's too easy. I'm talking about blind runs only. It makes no sense to talk about game difficulty if one has done multiple runs. 99.9% of the games will be very easy once you know it inside out.
SInce I only ever beat 2 FE games, I gotta use Three Houses as example. My blind run was on Hard, and it felt quite easy. Second run was NG+ Maddening and it felt very easy after a certain point. NG Maddening felt like the right difficulty, but even then I could grind skills almost as much as I want, so past a certain point my units got real powerful in comparison to enemies.
At the same time, if my blind run was on Maddening, I would've struggled a lot due to not fully understanding original mechanics, and small techniques.

Genealogy is same. It's easy once you know what's up. Like knowing the locations of certain items that have 0 clues ingame. Like knowing what's awaiting and planning for it. Kaga said the best difficulty for Genealogy is a commoner run. That throws out all the things people complain as being game breaking in the latter half. And of course that's not going to happen on a blind run. Unless the player comes somewhat prepared already, spoiled on certain things. Equivalent to playing with a guide by your side. Any SRPG is easy with a guide. Just do what it says.

Sure, you can really break the balance in Genealogy, but you got to know how to do it first. Braindead "Sigurd charges and wins" will have you hitting a brick wall later on. People who do that avoid hitting the wall because they know what's coming and can invest in solving the issue beforehand, while braindead Sigurd charges. Besides, what's fun about that? You got plenty of unique characters, all with potential to be aces (if you work for it), limited finances, unique mechanics, why fall back to "Sigurd goes brrr"? Might as well leave a save right before the end credits and skip to it. What's the point of playing a game with grand plot, rich characters, unique implementation of lore and challenging options if you just want to press a button and win? Which you can only do if you already know the game. Unlike Awakening the Waifu Instinct. Enemy spawns assure you getting all the exp you might ever need just by looking at the map. You don't need to know about it beforehand. It's right there.

Honestly, try a blind run. See your rank at the end. Look up some guides only after it and see how many cool tactics and events you missed. And then tell me "yeah man, Genealogy was so easy, I don't remember anything from it". If you do that, then I'll retrieve to my cave I crawled out of and start wetting my pillow in frustration as I won't have any arguments for you)))
In you case you read this far and forgot, "Awakening Waifu Emblem was so easy I don't even remember anything, and got bored knowing I can beat it any time" is what I'm saying here. Genealogy though, I got legit stuck on final map on my very first playthrough, back in 1996. I still remember it. Half my army useless, a quarter dead. Only 2~3 units able to go against enemies and not lose, and I didn't even get to see final boss that time. Restarted from beginning. Arden was level 2 or 3, btw))
Now I call Arden "The Beast of Bridges and Keeps" and can do a lot of things in Genealogy. Still replaying it and really using my head and knowledge for ranked runs. Unlike Waifening. Lost all hope for the franchise back then. In no small part due to difficulty as well as "you must love waifus" approach in the face. Just not my cup of tea)))

Hi, completely ignorant person who only got involved in Fire Emblem Awakening here.

 

Firstly let's tackle the difficulty of the game right out of the bat, for a completely blind to the series player going into awakening with no clue on what to do.

 

struggled hard in my first playthrough on normal mode.  That's not a broken game lol.  Yes I used pair up and yes I got my arse handed to me.  I sat the game down for two whole years.

Came back to the chapter I had trouble with and eventually cleared it, got caught on several Valm arc chapters and the latter half of the game.  Why?  Because I was playing blind.  It took me following a guide to clear Lunatic mode, even with DLC, and I can tell you right now it wasn't at all easy.  Even though I wasn't blind at this point lol.

Also you have to clear Lunatic mode on Classic if you want Lunatic + on Classic mode.  Lunatic is available out of the gate lol.

As for your final point, you do you, though acting like Awakening is "Waifu Emblem" kinda makes you sound like a very bitter person about the game that brought new players into the series, practically saving the franchise to give us all Fire Emblem Heroes, Fates and Three Houses as well as Shadows of Valentia and Warriors.  Which is drawing attention to the games and characters you like lol.

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18 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Firstly let's tackle the difficulty of the game right out of the bat, for a completely blind to the series player going into awakening with no clue on what to do.

 

struggled hard in my first playthrough on normal mode.  That's not a broken game lol.  Yes I used pair up and yes I got my arse handed to me.  I sat the game down for two whole years.

I'm sure you did. Especially if you weren't playing too many SRPGs beforehand. Two years, five years, no difference. If you're stuck, you're stuck. Remember Tactics Ogre I mentioned? The game you can set up to breeze through literally from the start? And the method is right there in front of you, called Training Mode. I got stuck playing it in junior high, finally beat it in university. 
More importantly, as I keep writing again and again, I'm arguing against people putting Genealogy and Awakening on same level of "broken game", if not putting Genealogy as even more broken. Why? Because methods to "break" it, to set it up to be not a challenge at all isn't as clear in Genealogy as it is in Awakening. That's all.
I'm not saying Genealogy is somehow extremely difficult and Awakening is a child's play. I'm comparing which one is easier to "break" on a blind run. Awakening has random enemy spawning maps. That's the difference. One doesn't have to know anything to see those maps on the over world and click on them.
Will everyone be able to do that? Not necessarily. But the option is still there in plain sight. Just like I could've broken TO and yet got stuck, people will get stuck in Awakening as well. As you have proven.

 

27 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

As for your final point, you do you, though acting like Awakening is "Waifu Emblem" kinda makes you sound like a very bitter person about the game that brought new players into the series, practically saving the franchise to give us all Fire Emblem Heroes, Fates and Three Houses as well as Shadows of Valentia and Warriors.  Which is drawing attention to the games and characters you like lol.

Yeah, strange, isn't it? I can totally picture people saying to me "wait a second, if Awakening is Waifu Emblem, what about Genealogy? Don't you literally do the same things? Pair up characters, breed the offspring, "ship" all over the place, how are they different?"
I don't know.
Perhaps it's the story. Perhaps it's the overall feel. Perhaps it's overabundance of supports in Awakening making it look like date simulator on a picnic. Perhaps it's the mixing up of current and later generations which make kids look like they're literally bread just as weapons of war. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is that makes me dislike Awakening and scorn at it. Oh, and being more in line with "proper" FE doesn't help. By "proper" I mean having tiny maps, overflowing items, gigantic cast that does nothing for the most part because you can't even deploy everyone, etc. That's just my own cursed preference. The same goes for most FE games. I'm not a fan of most of FE even though I did try playing most of them.

The one translated as Three Houses was a pleasant surprise. Finally a game I really liked. Others though? Never even touched them. Seriously.

So, dunno. Awakening saved the series (I couldn't believe it when I learned that was the case). But new fans were different. The tastes and trends changed. It's inevitable. And it's not like new fans will go out there and purchase Genealogy, which is a sfc/snes game. Too many consoles stand between sfc/snes and current ones. Even if they did, chances are they won't like it because it's too different. While I complain about tiny maps in other FE games, people complain about huge maps of Genealogy, for example.
First three games got a remake though. But at the same time I was never a hardcore fan of them.

 

So, yeah... I don't know how to feel about series being saved by becoming something very different. Is it a good thing? Objectively, yes. Do I care for the new games enough to celebrate it? No. So there you have it.

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10 minutes ago, IshiharaS said:

I'm sure you did. Especially if you weren't playing too many SRPGs beforehand. Two years, five years, no difference. If you're stuck, you're stuck. Remember Tactics Ogre I mentioned? The game you can set up to breeze through literally from the start? And the method is right there in front of you, called Training Mode. I got stuck playing it in junior high, finally beat it in university. 
More importantly, as I keep writing again and again, I'm arguing against people putting Genealogy and Awakening on same level of "broken game", if not putting Genealogy as even more broken. Why? Because methods to "break" it, to set it up to be not a challenge at all isn't as clear in Genealogy as it is in Awakening. That's all.
I'm not saying Genealogy is somehow extremely difficult and Awakening is a child's play. I'm comparing which one is easier to "break" on a blind run. Awakening has random enemy spawning maps. That's the difference. One doesn't have to know anything to see those maps on the over world and click on them.
Will everyone be able to do that? Not necessarily. But the option is still there in plain sight. Just like I could've broken TO and yet got stuck, people will get stuck in Awakening as well. As you have proven.

 

Yeah, strange, isn't it? I can totally picture people saying to me "wait a second, if Awakening is Waifu Emblem, what about Genealogy? Don't you literally do the same things? Pair up characters, breed the offspring, "ship" all over the place, how are they different?"
I don't know.
Perhaps it's the story. Perhaps it's the overall feel. Perhaps it's overabundance of supports in Awakening making it look like date simulator on a picnic. Perhaps it's the mixing up of current and later generations which make kids look like they're literally bread just as weapons of war. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is that makes me dislike Awakening and scorn at it. Oh, and being more in line with "proper" FE doesn't help. By "proper" I mean having tiny maps, overflowing items, gigantic cast that does nothing for the most part because you can't even deploy everyone, etc. That's just my own cursed preference. The same goes for most FE games. I'm not a fan of most of FE even though I did try playing most of them.

The one translated as Three Houses was a pleasant surprise. Finally a game I really liked. Others though? Never even touched them. Seriously.

So, dunno. Awakening saved the series (I couldn't believe it when I learned that was the case). But new fans were different. The tastes and trends changed. It's inevitable. And it's not like new fans will go out there and purchase Genealogy, which is a sfc/snes game. Too many consoles stand between sfc/snes and current ones. Even if they did, chances are they won't like it because it's too different. While I complain about tiny maps in other FE games, people complain about huge maps of Genealogy, for example.
First three games got a remake though. But at the same time I was never a hardcore fan of them.

 

So, yeah... I don't know how to feel about series being saved by becoming something very different. Is it a good thing? Objectively, yes. Do I care for the new games enough to celebrate it? No. So there you have it.

I've played plenty SRPGs thank you.  Awakening as I said was the first time I was exposed to Fire Emblem specifically and that came from me trying out Pokémon Conquest beforehand and finding out it was based on FE, thus I got Awakening soon after.  The rest as they say is history.

 

As I mentioned it did throw me for a loop and I had to figure it out myself at the time.  Which I did and it's led to some fun experiences.

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18 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

I've played plenty SRPGs thank you.  Awakening as I said was the first time I was exposed to Fire Emblem specifically and that came from me trying out Pokémon Conquest beforehand and finding out it was based on FE, thus I got Awakening soon after.  The rest as they say is history.

One could argue that every turn-based SRPG with unique characters serving as units, 2D maps, overarching plot, variety of equipment, promotions and such, is based on FE. Simply because FE made it a mainstream thing back in the day))))

You seem irritated at my comment "especially if you haven't played many SRPGs beforehand". It's not me assuming you haven't played SRPGs. It's me pointing out a reason as to why people might struggle with Awakening. That's all. Who knows why you struggled. It's not an unreasonable thing to happen anyway.

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15 hours ago, Axie said:

anyway, the question isn't which game is easier, but whether awakening is the most broken game in the series (aka, which game can be the most easily exploited in its mechanics to have its difficulty trivialised beyond the ways the developers probably intended), and whoever is saying any other game instead is living in jumanji. you have the possibility to break awakening in a way you absolutely can't with genealogy. it's just that the latter kind of gives whichever broken-ness it has to you on a silver platter, while the former's broken-ness isn't immediately obvious to a first time player who might try to play the game normally.

Yeah, great point and definition of what "broken" means.

With that in mind I'd like to point out that certain GBA FE game allows player to enter debugging mode without any external tools, and literally take full control of enemy units. One can see example of that in any% speedrun.

So can we really say Awakening is the most broken? Or do we need additional criteria, like not taking into account any glitches or mechanics intended for developers, and focusing solely on things possible in the intended way of playing?

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5 hours ago, IshiharaS said:

With that in mind I'd like to point out that certain GBA FE game allows player to enter debugging mode without any external tools, and literally take full control of enemy units. One can see example of that in any% speedrun.

So can we really say Awakening is the most broken? Or do we need additional criteria, like not taking into account any glitches or mechanics intended for developers, and focusing solely on things possible in the intended way of playing?

oooh, i wouldn't count glitches and debuging modes as "exploiting the mechanics" of the game. it's not meant to used to begin with. i was definitely thinking of things that are possible in the intended way of playing.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/17/2021 at 10:32 PM, IshiharaS said:

Nice. Let me deal with your reply in parts. The grinding.
Any game with experience points does offer some kind of grinding options, not just FE. What I focused on was the easiness for recognizing potential grind spots on the very first playthrough.
Games like Awakening, Holy Evil Shining Stones, or Tear Ring Saga, they all have common feature. You do not need to know beforehand the places and situations you can exploit, nor do you need to make adjustments on the fly when you recognise the potential for grind mid battle. All you have to do is open the overworld and you'll see game showing you unlimited exp points. That's what I meant. It's far easier to access compared to blind playthrough of Genealogy. Or take original Tactics Ogre (snes/ps1 port) for example. It literally has Training menu after completeng first two maps which are carried by NPCs you don't even get to order around. Spend a dozen hours, get mc to around level 18~20, and literally solo every single map. No one takes that to claim that original Tactics Ogre is broken. But no one can deny that the grind is one of the easiest in it. You can literally put in auto pilot, go do your thing, come back in evening, and boom. OP units.
If you had to know a certain spot and technique to do that though, it would be more difficult to perform. That's what I'm getting at.
And as far as I remember, didn't Lunatic and Lunatic+ require you to beat the game first in Awakening? So that ain't happening on the blind run.

You're half right with that last one - Lunatic+ requires beating Lunatic to unlock, but Lunatic does not require beating the game first (and frankly, playing Lunatic blind would be as insane as insane gets). Anyway, grinding is not taken into account when discussing difficulty for obvious reasons. Also, enemy spawns in Awakening are based on real time (and once again, grinding is much less viable on any difficulty other than Normal, especially on Lunatic, where it's all but unfeasible - and even if you could feasibly grind against Risen on Lunatic, you only get 1 exp even when you kill an enemy)... anyway, your overemphasis on blind runs doesn't help your case, because to actually break a game, you have to know HOW to break it first.

On 2/17/2021 at 10:32 PM, IshiharaS said:

Everyone's favourite point to bring up. The horsies.
Also the point I truly do not understand in full. I can think of exactly two maps each having one section where you're forced to leave infantry behind if you want to receive bonuses. That's it. Total of 20 turns max. In the whole game. For bonuses one doesn't even need. Start of chapter 2 and start of chapter 10.
So I fail to see any reasons to favour mounted units over infantry in all other cases. Size of the maps is brought up, but it's not like you have to traverse it from side to side and back without stopping. The objective is usually right there. Or there are multiple fronts opened simultaneously. So why abandon the infantry in a blind run? I don't know. In fact, one of my favourite tactics was to form a wall of infantry to stop the initial charge and breach the enemy line with hit-and-away cavalry to later encircle and annihilate the enemy forces. Works just fine.
That said, if we're talking about ranked runs things do change. It is true that in order to minimise the turn count you'll be forced to leave 60~70% of combat to cavalry. How many people do ranked runs on blind playthrough? Not that many if any. It will require a complete guide to follow, which means player will know exactly what's up. As I mentioned, knowing what's to come and not knowing are two big differences affecting the overall difficulty.
Ardan and Hannibal do have a disadvantage. But so what? Two units. Out of 40. Each has a specific place they can shine at. All one needs is to have lvl 5 Ardan to march straight north in chapter 3 with a brave sword or pursuit ring or both, to have enemy hordes suicide against him later on in the chapter while you're doing something else. Hannibal can singlehandedly deal with besiegement in chapter 9. That's quite enough in my opinion. Taking up tasks that would require other units to be used and thus interfering with overall plans.
So to summarize, I fail to see any need to fix anything about the cavalry in blind runs. Or even in ranked runs. Speaking of which we get to the hottest topic.

Arden and Hannibal? More like "every unit that isn't mounted", because mounted units have much more movement than foot units (promoted mounted units have 9 vs most foot units' 6; to put things into perspective, that's the move gap between armored units and mounted units in most other games), and the existence of roads only makes things worse, because mounts get more mileage from them for obvious reasons (on that note, it's rather telling that Arden himself knows that he's not likely to be able to contribute much. It's also extremely telling that despite the fact that him being its wielder is established as canon in Thracia [as the character and weapon in question both appear in said game with the weapon being locked to him], Ced is not the best user of Forseti in Genealogy; Arthur is). And then there's the fact that Canto is at its absolute best here, because aside from letting them move again, mounted units can switch weapons after attacking. Thanks to the bloated maps, I'd have to slow down (routinely, mind you) to have infantry combat units contribute in any remotely noteworthy fashion in Genealogy, never mind Arden and Hannibal. And in a game where one of the main selling points is being able to use everyone, that's a huge problem, as it sucks a lot of the fun of being able to use everyone out of the game. Another question I have is, why in the seven hells would I give Arden the Brave Sword when I would get ten billion percent more mileage giving it to Sigurd (or anyone who can actually be expected to see combat, aka any mounted unit that can use swords)??? Arden and Hannibal having a use is one thing, but if someone else can do it better, which is the case due to better movement, then why use them for it instead of someone else who can get there sooner, especially considering that Genealogy is the absolute worst game to be an armored knight in??? Which is to say, Lex can do what you say Arden can, and do it better because he's mounted, and thus can get to chokepoints much more quickly than Arden can. And that's ignoring that there's no opportunity cost to doing this because the Brave Axe is pretty much exclusive to him (as opposed to the Brave Sword, which I'm not getting the most mileage out of by giving it to Arden, who'd be lucky to see any real amount of combat because of his awful move), and that he has Paragon, meaning he levels up quicker. TL;DR, to have an easy time beating a game with big maps (like Genealogy!), I'd have to frequently use mounted units, because big maps favor mounted units.

On 2/17/2021 at 10:32 PM, IshiharaS said:

Sigurd. This is the point of utmost confusion for me. People claiming Genealogy is broken because Sigurd exists and is supposedly enough to dominate the game.
I don't hear the same people saying "Man, Shadow Dragon is broken, You have Jaegan from chapter 1 man, why would you even deploy anyone when you can dominate the first half of the game just with Jaegan". It's the same thing to me. "Man, Genealogy is broken. Remember Jaegan from FE1? They renamed him Sigurd and you can dominate the first half of the game with him. You don't have any access to him in the main portion, but it's still enough to call the whole game broken."
It just doesn't make any sense to me. Not only Sigurd is physically unable to fight on multiple fronts, which are very much a thing in Genealogy, he can't really solo absolutely everything with that nice silver sword he got. He still needs other units, even to perform game breaking glitch. And the more you rely on him, the more struggles await in main portion.
The same people who say Sigurd carries the first half tend to have other units busy making love, gathering items, getting stat boosts and farming exp. Sigurd is only there to push the siege button once everyone else is ready. All that in order to have an easy main portion. It ain't SIgurd who makes second half easy (if one wants to, not required at all, even not taken into account by Kaga when balancing the second half. As he said, main portion is designed with commoners run in mind, with no second generation babies apart from auto pairings), it's everyone else.
So let's talk about his replacement. Secil. If one is kind of player to be keen on efficiency and speed, to utilise cavalry over infantry, then the one will realise that Secil doesn't have any time for combat. He's needed in too many places asap to bother with actual fighting. So it doesn't matter if he can take out regiments alone, he won't even be there. Busy running around with Leif "The Resquer" and "Leg Ring Dancer". It falls to others to get in positions and actually take out main bodies of enemies. Secil can't even face Allion and his men, or Ishthor on his own. Ishthor only needs to double him from 10 tiles away to show you the Game Over screen. Which is very much a thing that can happen. So Secil doesn't really dominate anything even on ranked runs where you also need exp for everyone. Not just cavalry.
On casual blind runs Secil is just another unit you can rely on to take out a certain enemy in a turn to help others. Like Jaegan. Even that isn't limited to him. Oyfey, Shannan, Ares, Lief (if he promotes around turn 5 in chapter 8), etc. And those units have other roles to fullfill in ranked runs. Like Shanna being the de facto thief with the thief sword in commoner run cuz Daisy sucks. Lief being "The Resquer" and Ares being the final trump card when you're stuck against Ishtal or something. So the neo-Sigurd ain't much of a deal. Even if he does promote on the very first turn of chapter 7. If he doesn't, you have your infantry lord forcing everyone to keep pace with him.
So to summarize, if I don't plan to waste exp on Jaegan why would I waste it on Sigurd? A very strange argument to me that Sigurd breaks the game. Throw in the grinding portion, and you could say any unit breaks any game, but somehow it's Genealogy getting the flak.

Comparing Sigurd to Jagen is silly, and you know it. Jagen doesn't have the stats or growths to stay relevant the whole game, whereas Sigurd starts good and STAYS THAT WAY throughout the first generation (that being said, Shadow Dragon for the DS improved Jagen by giving him exclusive Silver Lance access out of Marth's initial crew due to weapon ranks now being used for the purpose of determining what weapons a unit can wield). RE: Seliph, some of the more optimal inheritance strategies involve him becoming uber powerful ASAP. Why? Because he's the main character of the second half of the game (and with the fact that his father is the main character in the first half, I'm expected to use HIM a lot as well, which equals having a better Seliph), and because his promoted class is the same one Sigurd had, meaning he gets all the boons that come with being mounted (also, because Genealogy is the most move-centric game, having a mounted lord is much better than not having one). Also, a lot of flak Genealogy gets is because its weapon and unit balance is, to be blunt, absolutely laughable. One look at the weights of the anima tomes is telling enough (because fire magic, despite having the advantage against wind magic on paper due to weapon triangle advantage, doesn't quite do so in practice because fire magic is so much heavier), but when you see that swords have a similar advantage against lances, that's a red flag. On units, not having Pursuit, a horse, or Holy Blood automatically makes you worse off than those who do have them, especially the horse because the giant maps blatantly favour mounted units, as is shown by the likes of Lewyn and Shannan, who have access to holy weapons. All this being said, every Fire Emblem game has its fair share of balance problems, but Genealogy's balance issues stick out like a sore thumb. By the way, I would mention something called "low-manning". Basically, when low-manning, a player uses a smaller team, which means that those characters quickly get ahead of the curve. This is something that breaks just about any FE game, too, with Fates as about the only exception because said game's experience formula is much harder on higher level units. To illustrate my point: Killing an enemy of equal level usually gives you 30 EXP. While this decreases with every level you're over the enemy, it's generally not very noticeable. In Fates, however, it's much more notable, as you get 4 less experience for every level you are over the enemy. This means that what in most games would still get you a good chunk of exp stops being lucrative in Fates rather quickly.

On 2/17/2021 at 10:32 PM, IshiharaS said:

Yeah, plenty of games have hidden content. I don't see the point. Hidden content in Genealogy makes life a lot easier. Almost at level of gaining extra units. Like, who would consider Lex a strong unit without that brave axe? Or Leif an S class fighter from the get go without the pursuit ring? Difference is huge. Blind runs won't have those items.
I have no idea who the characters you mentioned are, never touched Fates. So you lose a unit. Happens. You can lose a unit to one mistake in Genealogy too if you didn't pay enough attention. Especially in main portion where revival isn't even close to being guaranteed depending on how you play. I saw a guy lose both Fee and Altena on his blind run. With no revival option. Fee died in chapter 6, meaning he never had a flier to do the flier stuff. Like going on solo support missions. That changed the difficulty alright. Sure, you can reset, but so can you reset Fates. Go back to a save a couple chapters back if you're that invested in Robin, or whatever the character you lost might be. Don't have a separate save file? Can't help you. Same with Genealogy.

Overall my argument boils down to "enjoy the game the way it was intended to". Just because one can perform credits warp in half an hour for FF6 doesn't mean that's the way people enjoy the game. People do it for records on any% speedruns, but play the actual game in a totally different manner. And no one says FF6 is broken. Though you can do insane stuff apart from credit warps.
As for comparison between Genealogy and Awakening, it's the comparative easiness to dominate the game without any prior knowledge, just by looking at the map. That's the difference.

You go on and on about "comparative easiness to dominate the game without any prior knowledge", but I wouldn't expect someone playing FEA on Lunatic to "dominate the game" unless they had prior knowledge because Lunatic is a MASSIVE step up from Hard (and this is putting aside the fact that trying to play Lunatic blind is beyond insane).

https://wiki.serenesforest.net/index.php/Awakening_LM_Enemy_Data:_Prologue

Take a look at the enemy stats on that page. Then consider that this is the PROLOGUE of the game. And it only gets worse from there. Anyway, I had seen a discussion of the difficulty of the games in the series, and one person stated that while Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance are often considered the easiest entries in the series, that reputation might be one that is false and undeserved due to most players not having access to - or interest in - the Kaga era games, and implying that other than Thracia, they're even easier than those (in the case of Path of Radiance, I would also note that the highest difficulty was removed from the international version). So I don't really see how Awakening is the most broken game in the series, considering that most of the stuff that breaks it also breaks other games. RE: Final Fantasy 6, most of the broken stuff is not available until the second half of the game, when the world has gone to shit in the most literal sense (and most of that [technically] happens to be optional too). Case in point: Ultima. There are only two ways to learn the spell, and both require going through an optional dungeon (and one that requires two parties, at that), with one of those requiring some degree of effort (and that's putting aside that due to the way learning spells works in said game, you need to put in some effort anyway, especially as it's learned at a rate of x1).

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Unless you played online on Fates.
One useless move, and the enemy's Level.99 Ryoma with max skills and a +9 weapon would have activated Astra + Lethality + Luna + Sun + Whatever and killed your units, your console speaker, the cartdrige, your family, your house, your fridge and even your dog.

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7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Comparing Sigurd to Jagen is silly, and you know it. Jagen doesn't have the stats or growths to stay relevant the whole game, whereas Sigurd starts good and STAYS THAT WAY throughout the first generation

As far as this goes, i think Seth would have been a better example, and probably better than Sigurd due to SS being so easy. And if you choose Ephraim's route, he has #1 usability in the game as well.

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