RD 2nd Playthrough

[Sparechange97]

So I am currently in 2-2 in Radiant Dawn. I'm emulating it on Dolphin and grabbed a completed normal mode file from the internet. As I am getting my little butt handed to me, I began to wonder: can I use the normal mode completed file and use it on an Easy playthrough and still get the 2nd playthrough perks (Pelleas, Lohran, etc.)? It did ask me what difficulty mode I wanted to do when I loaded it so I'm just curious (I'm also tired of Heather killing herself every time in 2-2 without fail so I might restart on easy).

[GonzoMD1993]

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that as long as you're playing on a clear file it doesn't matter what difficulty you choose; the extra content should be available (i.e. you get the choice to spare Pelleas and you get Lehran if you deploy the BK in 1-F and you make Ike and the BK have a round of combat at 3-7). There shouldn't be any problems with you playing in Easy Mode.

I'm not sure if you're interested, but I could offer some advice, or at least tell you how I usually deal with 2-2.

EDIT: I wrote what's below with 2-2 in mind, but now that I think about it, you mentioned Heather "killing herself" rather than just dying. Maybe the chapter you're having trouble with isn't 2-2, but 2-1 where Heather is a green unit? If so, and if you're interested in hearing some advice let me know. It should be a lot easier to recruit her before she gets herself killed in Easy Mode, but I can probably give you a couple of pointers if you want.

I find feeding kills to units in part 2 to be too tedious to be worth it even if you want to, say, train Nephenee. So I just let the busted units that either don't grow much or don't rejoin until much later do all the work. What I do here is just rush through the bottom path and let Lucia take most of the kills. Lethe and Mordecai usually can't one round anything in HM (the former lacks the STR while the latter lacks the SPD), but they can both chunk pretty hard and are basically unkillable while transformed, and in any case they may actually be able to one round stuff in EM or NM. Nephenee can contribute to combat but she's more frail so you can't expose her to 4-5 attacks per turn like you could with Lucia or the transformed Laguz.

I let Brom block the chokepoint on the top left corner on his own and never move him from there. Unless he gets critted by a mage reinforcement he doesn't die so long as you pop a vulnerary every now and then. On the first turn I make Mordecai pop 2 Olivi Grass (with a refresh from Leanne) so that he can transform right away on turn 2 player phase. There's no point in hoarding the Grass so you can make Lethe pop 1 too, but with how fast the cat gauge charges I don't find it that necessary. As you advance right just make sure that you're blocking chokepoints with Lucia, Mordecai and Lethe and use Grass to keep their gauge up so that they don't untransform on enemy phase. Don't expose Heather to combat if you don't have to; she barely does any damage anyways. Keep her near the front to make use of her extended fog sight, but make sure that she at worst faces 1 enemy per turn. I don't think she's frail enough to die in 2 hits, but if she's dying every single time you must be exposing her quite a lot.

Don't feel bad about letting Lucia get a bunch of kills. It's really not worth it it funneling exp into Nephenee (or Brom, if you like using him) now when you get them back at 3-2 anyways and the GM chapters are way, way easier. Even in HM it's perfectly feasible to start training a base level Nephenee in chapter 3-2. Make Lucia take the boss kill even if you have to.

Also, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with your Heather dying but don't feel compelled to make her steal the boss' Secret Book. I honestly think it's the most useless stat booster in this game. Even Ashera Icons have a niche in making units that are only a few points away from hitting the 0 crit threshold crit inmune (personally, I like giving both of the Icons you have by 3-2 to Haar which makes him have the exact amount of LCK he needs to face 0 crit from Thunder Sages), but +2 SKL just feels useless. There's no SKL threshold that you ever have to meet, and most of the strong units in this game have really good base SKL anyway. The money you get out of selling it is nice, but this game is pretty generous with money.

Edited November 2, 2021 by GonzoMD1993