Flexibility and Challenge Alignment Chart

[AnonymousSpeed]

Made using this: https://tiermaker.com/create-xy/fire-emblem-games-tier-list-updated-162123

The idea behind this chart is not so much to assess the quality of these games, but the kind of strategic experience they offer. I like to think the axes are fairly intuitive, but for a brief rundown: Flexibility vs Rigidity describes how many different options you have for tackling challenges, while Challenging vs Easy describes how much thought those challenges require. Feel free to share your own chart or criticisms of this and other charts.

[Shaky Jones]

Now this is interesting. I mean, tier lists are great and all for making many enemies, but I like seeing the comparison of these games charted out like this, and based off what I'm seeing, no wonder I'm a fan of all the games on the top right. I love an FE game that challenges you to use all resources provided to make it through its tough designs and enemies. I suppose the main thing that stands out to me is 3H being on the easier scale, when maddening is pretty difficult. I'm guessing its the divine pulses and the fact of how easy it is to make a vantage wrath build to mitigate a lot of the challenge that places it lower? (I'm not even getting into Awakening)

The only 2 games I'd disagree with would be Geneology and Old Mystery. Id swap their places myself. Heck, I might move Genealogy way more to the left, since I never felt encouraged to use anyone that wasn't a mount, and the overall lack of units felt like there's not too much to change in a 2nd playthrough, aside from child units I guess. As for Old Mystery, ya got those crazy broken shards that could make even Arran cap his stats with those insane growth modifiers. Its not enough to make the game super flexible, but I dont think its really rigid.

But yeah, top right is based. I can also get behind the bottom right ones too with enough shenanigans, but DSFE will always strike that perfect mixture of challenge and crazy flexibility for me. Id make one myself but I'm a bit busy rn, so maybe I'll edit one of my own if I feel it'd look pretty different, or of others share theirs.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

I suppose the main thing that stands out to me is 3H being on the easier scale, when maddening is pretty difficult. I'm guessing its the divine pulses and the fact of how easy it is to make a vantage wrath build to mitigate a lot of the challenge that places it lower? (I'm not even getting into Awakening)

That's part of it, there's also Swift Strikes and Hunter's Volley and such. On lower difficulties, it's very easy. It' my understanding (as a non-Maddening player) that Three Houses presents you with intimidating but "solved" challenges, and that there are well understood solutions to most of these problems. I could see counting this against its flexibility but also increasing its challenge. Which goes back to what you say about Genealogy- you have many tools but don't feel strong incentive to use more than a few of them. I went with a fairly surface level rather than practical idea of "flexibility" for this chart, make of that what you will.

Anyway, yes. Looking forward to completing the rest of the top-right games, since I liked Shadow Dragon and Conquest a lot.

[Shrimpica]

My take on it

Conquest is the only game to offer both flexiblity and challenge imo. 

The DS games may offer free reclass, but them being so...basic for the lack of a better term and the lack of a skill/Combat art system makes the flexibility kinda... meh. Hence not that flexible for me.

Thracia i always considered one of the easier games tbh, and FE4 is probably the easiest game in the series, but they both offer more flexibility than the GBA games, the most rigid (and imo boring) games in the serie.

On the other hand i always found 3H much harder than people say it is. Maybe because i don't go 15 Wyverns?

Radiant Dawn has alot of flexibility thanks to the huge cast and how the skill system works. I spent alot of hours later on trying to optimize the skills. Berwick's flexibility comes from the fact of how unique every unit there is, and how skills really differentiate units there.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Father Shrimpas

[Eltosian Kadath]

I think my controversial takes here are not putting Conquest in the top right corner, and having Thracia be the middle of difficulty. The difficulty line of FE7, FE15, FE4, and FE14R is the part I am least certain of, but otherwise I am fairly satisfied with this one.

[Benice]

I haven't actually played the hardest difficulty for all of these games, (I have yet to do PoR Maniac, RD Hard or FE11 H5, but I have done H3) but yes, here is my low-quality compass. To validate some of my weirder opinions, I consider both FE8 and FE6 to be somewhat flexible because of cast imbalance and how much you can change your teams, whereas, although my one experience with FE7's hardest difficulty was weird, the cast felt a lot more homogenous and I got the same results from about anyone. Same goes for PoR, which does give options to customize characters but gave me no reason to do so. Three Houses was in a similar boat where I had lots of options but wrecked the game with anything, (Warrior Lysithea and Mage Raphael carried me a fair bit, for example) but the game does just provide so much that I can't help but acknowledge it for the flexibility, even if it's not something I liked.

Conversely, I consider RD to be flexible because of how many units and options you have, not to mention supports and such. Choices of what you do matter so much more there, so I appreciate it a lot.

I maybe gave Sacred Stones a little too much credit for difficulty considering it was my very first FE, but I do stand by the point that there are some tricky maps in there, and the earlygame can pose a challenge if you don't use Seth.

...And I probably should have put Genealogy further right, but oh well.

[Jotari]

Not sure Shadow Dragon  NES and Shadow Dragon DS should be completely polar opposites. I get that reclassing adds a lot more flexibility to Shadow Dragon DS, but it still shares a lot of its game design with the original title. At the very least I'd say Genealogy is more flexible than Shadow Dragon due to it's ugenics and even just having skills (or even canto).

[AnonymousSpeed]

19 hours ago, Benice said:

I maybe gave Sacred Stones a little too much credit for difficulty considering it was my very first FE, but I do stand by the point that there are some tricky maps in there, and the earlygame can pose a challenge if you don't use Seth.

Yeah, it seems each route has it's own headache of a map (Chapter 9 Eirika vs Phantom Ship).

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Not sure Shadow Dragon  NES and Shadow Dragon DS should be completely polar opposites. I get that reclassing adds a lot more flexibility to Shadow Dragon DS, but it still shares a lot of its game design with the original title. At the very least I'd say Genealogy is more flexible than Shadow Dragon due to it's ugenics and even just having skills (or even canto).

It shares the map design, but I'd say that not only is reclassing pretty massive, but so are things like forges, less weapon restrictions, ballistas, etc. To be fair, I might have sold the original short on flexibility. It has secret shop statboosters and chameleons as well, not to mention the iconic Warp staff.

I'm not really convinced that skills automatically equate to flexibility. Not even a "pursuit too good" argument, or to say that FE4 isn't flexible, but Sacred Stones technically has skills.

[Benice]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, it seems each route has it's own headache of a map (Chapter 9 Eirika vs Phantom Ship).

Not to mention Chapters 5 and 6, which are both quite tricky, 15, which is harder on Eirika's in my experience, the Rausten map, and the final map all posed decent challenges depending on your choices.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, it seems each route has it's own headache of a map (Chapter 9 Eirika vs Phantom Ship).

It shares the map design, but I'd say that not only is reclassing pretty massive, but so are things like forges, less weapon restrictions, ballistas, etc. To be fair, I might have sold the original short on flexibility. It has secret shop statboosters and chameleons as well, not to mention the iconic Warp staff.

I'm not really convinced that skills automatically equate to flexibility. Not even a "pursuit too good" argument, or to say that FE4 isn't flexible, but Sacred Stones technically has skills.

Oh I'm not disputing that Shadow Dragon has a lot more in the flexibility department, just that I don't think it has so much more to be completely opposite on the chart to the game it was based on, nor even that it's one of the most flexible titles in the series.

[Alastor15243]

So, for the hell of it, I went back to my play-and-rank scoreboard and laid everything out on this map by interpreting the two axes as the "difficulty" and "depth" categories. And this is the result:

 

The most amusing thing I noticed is that Conquest is the only game I gave a positive score in both categories, and Dark Dragon is the only one I gave a negative score in both categories. Most of the games I have nice things to say about difficultywise aren't that deep, and most of the games with robust skill systems don't have well-designed difficulty.

 

Edit: I just realized I did the axes backwards compared to everyone else. I am sorry.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Alastor15243

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 1/8/2022 at 5:56 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Edit: I just realized I did the axes backwards compared to everyone else. I am sorry.

It took me three weeks to notice, but this explains why I was so perplexed by this chart.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Well, here's mine, of all the games I've actually beaten. I based challenge on the highest difficulty I'd personally experienced - like, I'm sure Awakening Lunatic+ is harder than Radiant Dawn Hard Mode, but it's also some serious bullshit, so let's forget about it. As for "flexibility", I looked at stuff like roster size, reclassing, forging, and so on. Three Houses leads the pack here, followed by Fates, then Awakening, but beyond that it becomes something of a morass.

Let me know what you think!

Edited March 9, 2022 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Clarification.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Let me know what you think!

I'm curious why you have Path of Radiance as more flexible than Radiant Dawn. For me, I'd probably have had it the other way around. RD has the ability to reuse skill scrolls, free choice on support partners, more variable forging, a bigger roster, and almost complete free choice on how to split your army for part 4. I suppose that PoR has less forced deployment so often more unit choice despite the smaller roster? Was that your thinking? Or something else?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'm curious why you have Path of Radiance as more flexible than Radiant Dawn. For me, I'd probably have had it the other way around. RD has the ability to reuse skill scrolls, free choice on support partners, more variable forging, a bigger roster, and almost complete free choice on how to split your army for part 4. I suppose that PoR has less forced deployment so often more unit choice despite the smaller roster? Was that your thinking? Or something else?

That was the biggest factor. At least half of the chapters in Radiant Dawn are "you'll use the units we give you, and you'll like it, dammit!". It's only in the latter chapters of Part I, the GM chapters of Part III, and Part IV where unit choice comes into play. Whereas, in Path of Radiance, your deployment choices matter from around chapter 10 through the rest of the game.

There are some other factors at play, too. In PoR, certain classes can pick their new weapon type upon promotion, namely Mages and Cavaliers. Whereas, in RD, all promotion lines are fixed, with no weapon choices beyond the default. Plus, PoR has equippables, like the Knight Ward and Class Bands, which affect unit growths in a way that isn't really possible in RD.

Granted, there are a couple aspects where RD is more flexible. Being able to reassign skills is a big one. And the support system, while criticized for its shallowness, is certainly more player-directed than any other supports we've seen. There's a case to call RD more flexible, but honestly I stand behind my original placement. 

[lenticular]

45 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

There are some other factors at play, too. In PoR, certain classes can pick their new weapon type upon promotion, namely Mages and Cavaliers. Whereas, in RD, all promotion lines are fixed, with no weapon choices beyond the default. Plus, PoR has equippables, like the Knight Ward and Class Bands, which affect unit growths in a way that isn't really possible in RD.

I did consider the promotion weapon choices, but I don't really think it comes up often enough to count for much. Dagger sages don't really have anything to offer, so that one is something of a non-choice, and for paladins, I generally find that there isn't much reason to use their secondary weapon type, when they have such a headstart with weapon rank on their primary type (unless you're Astrid and desperately want to not be bow-locked). I hadn't considered the equippables, though, and that is definitely a fair point.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

That was the biggest factor. At least half of the chapters in Radiant Dawn are "you'll use the units we give you, and you'll like it, dammit!". It's only in the latter chapters of Part I, the GM chapters of Part III, and Part IV where unit choice comes into play. Whereas, in Path of Radiance, your deployment choices matter from around chapter 10 through the rest of the game.

There are some other factors at play, too. In PoR, certain classes can pick their new weapon type upon promotion, namely Mages and Cavaliers. Whereas, in RD, all promotion lines are fixed, with no weapon choices beyond the default. Plus, PoR has equippables, like the Knight Ward and Class Bands, which affect unit growths in a way that isn't really possible in RD.

Granted, there are a couple aspects where RD is more flexible. Being able to reassign skills is a big one. And the support system, while criticized for its shallowness, is certainly more player-directed than any other supports we've seen. There's a case to call RD more flexible, but honestly I stand behind my original placement. 

Not that I entirely disagree with the conclusion, but if you say unit choice matters from chapter 10 onwards in Path of Radiance, and that unit choice matters from late part 1 in Radiant Dawn (which is essentially chapter 10), the Greil Merc chapters of Part 3 (which is almost all of them) and Part 4, you've essentially mentioned the only difference between the two games in terms of unit choice is the end pretty short Part 2.  Radiant Dawn has 30 more units than Path of Radiance, which isn't really a negligible difference.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Not that I entirely disagree with the conclusion, but if you say unit choice matters from chapter 10 onwards in Path of Radiance, and that unit choice matters from late part 1 in Radiant Dawn (which is essentially chapter 10), the Greil Merc chapters of Part 3 (which is almost all of them) and Part 4, you've essentially mentioned the only difference between the two games in terms of unit choice is the end pretty short Part 2.  Radiant Dawn has 30 more units than Path of Radiance, which isn't really a negligible difference.

That's a misinterpretation. In Part I, only chapters 7, 8, and Endgame have relevant character choices. In Part II, there's basically no character choice. In Part III, it's Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and Endgame (a little over half the Part). In Part IV, sure you get to split the army up, but some units are forced into certain routes (and then forced to deploy). Plus, by merit of the split-up, your deployable pool for each chapter is narrowed. Only going into the Tower do you get wide latitude to make character choices (and even then, about a third of your contingent is predetermined).

Compare to Path of Radiance. After Chapter 9, every chapter will give you fewer deployment slots than maximum possible units you can have up to that point. And there are far fewer forced deployments - it's Ike, plus Elincia that one time. Plus, there are no restrictions on using units one chapter after another. Compare to RD's Part IV, in which any given unit can only be fielded twice out of 6 chapters, by merit of the "army split" format. Even with an admittedly smaller army, in Path of Radiance, you get more freedom on which units to field in any given chapter than Radiant Dawn offers.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'd consider the "who goes with what army" decision to a significant point for flexibility: not only do you have to choose which 30-some of 50-some characters you're going to use, but for the majority of them you have to choose their route as well. That's neat, and gives you a lot to consider (especially if you know which route has the desert, etc.). But it's also just one 6-map section of the game.

That said overall there's unit choice in fewer of RD's maps relatively, as you note... 21 out of 43 maps, if I'm counting right, compared to 20/29 for RD (arguably 23/32 if you count the Serenes Forest chapter as four maps).

I wouldn't put the games super far apart for flexibility either way, but you didn't, so I've got no complaints.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'd consider the "who goes with what army" decision to a significant point for flexibility: not only do you have to choose which 30-some of 50-some characters you're going to use, but for the majority of them you have to choose their route as well. That's neat, and gives you a lot to consider (especially if you know which route has the desert, etc.). But it's also just one 6-map section of the game.

That said overall there's unit choice in fewer of RD's maps relatively, as you note... 21 out of 43 maps, if I'm counting right, compared to 20/29 for RD (arguably 23/32 if you count the Serenes Forest chapter as four maps).

I wouldn't put the games super far apart for flexibility either way, but you didn't, so I've got no complaints.

In terms of chapter count, it works out to unit choice mattering for about half of the chapters in RD, and two-thirds of the chapters in PoR. The exact numbers vary depending on how you answer certain questions (should I-6 be treated as two chapters? is the Tower five chapters, or just one? Is the Serenes Forest four chapters, or one? Should Ike's duel with the Black Knight count as its own chapter?), but most chapters are unambiguous enough that it manifests as little difference.

As for the "split-up" point, I'm honestly kind of torn. Yes, you get to break up a whole bunch of units, which is undeniably its own big choice. But in doing so, you constrain your choices for the next 6 chapters. In Path of Radiance, for instance, I could use Boyd for all of chapters 23 through 28. Or I could use him for none of them, or for half of them. But in Radiant Dawn, I can only use Boyd in up to two (pre-Tower) chapters in Part IV. In PoR, even when I didn't field him, I at least had the option of fielding him, whereas in RD, I lost said option after deciding which path to set him on. In that light, I think there's a case that the route split actually reduces flexibility, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.

And yeah, I don't think there's a huge "flexibility margin" between the games. They're more flexible than the ones which lacked skill assignment and forging, but less flexible than the ones with reclassing and branched promotions. It's interesting to see that a lot of people who came before me placed Radiant Dawn as dramatically more flexible (like, half a chart apart) than Path of Radiance. Perhaps my understanding of "flexibility" is different from that of a lot of other players, because RD feels like a rather rigid experience to me. Not that that's a bad thing, it's perhaps my favorite in the series, but... still.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

In Path of Radiance, for instance, I could use Boyd for all of chapters 23 through 28. Or I could use him for none of them, or for half of them. But in Radiant Dawn, I can only use Boyd in up to two (pre-Tower) chapters in Part IV. In PoR, even when I didn't field him, I at least had the option of fielding him, whereas in RD, I lost said option after deciding which path to set him on. In that light, I think there's a case that the route split actually reduces flexibility, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.

I don't think I agree, and I think this is because the option of benching someone to unbench them later is rarely a good one. If I bench Boyd (or whoever), he's probably one of the weaker members of my team when I do so. And then he doesn't gain levels while the people I deployed did, so he falls still further behind. The next time the choice to use him comes along, he's a worse option than the already mediocre one he was before. While yes I can choose to start using him again (and might in those rare cases where the deploy slots suddenly expand, like PoR's chapter 26), he'll very quickly reach the point where I have no reason to do this outside challenge runs.

So viewed through that lens, I think the route split unquestionably creates more flexibility than it reduces, for me. If 4-P through 4-5 was replaced by six maps of one party, I'd essentially just make one choice in 4-Prologue: I decide which ~16 units to actually use, and everyone else gets benched. There's promptly very little choice for the rest of part 4, including even the Tower (as the only question now becomes who gets kicked out for Caineghis and/or any other late-joiner(s) I decide to use). As it is, I have to choose a far larger number, which is more interesting to start with, and choose where they have to go. And then I get another choice at the Tower.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

9 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

So viewed through that lens, I think the route split unquestionably creates more flexibility than it reduces, for me. If 4-P through 4-5 was replaced by six maps of one party, I'd essentially just make one choice in 4-Prologue: I decide which ~16 units to actually use, and everyone else gets benched. There's promptly very little choice for the rest of part 4, including even the Tower (as the only question now becomes who gets kicked out for Caineghis and/or any other late-joiner(s) I decide to use). As it is, I have to choose a far larger number, which is more interesting to start with, and choose where they have to go. And then I get another choice at the Tower.

This may be the crux of our disagreement - I don't see this as inflexibility. If I can choose 10 units to field, from among 30 units, in a given chapter, then that is a more flexible scenario than choosing 10 units to field from among 15 units. Yes, even if I'm picking the same 10 units for 6 chapters in a row. It's not about the choice I make, it's about having that choice. I can see the route split as forcing me, the player, to be more "flexible", by using a wider variety of units, but I don't consider that to be "flexibility of gameplay" - quite the opposite, in fact. By limiting what I can do, the game is imposing a rigid scenario, which I have to bend to work around. Whereas, without these imposed limitations, I am free to make a wider degree of choices. I'm not saying that this is an inherently good thing, but from my perspective, the lack of said limitations indicates greater flexibility.

In fact, let's actually step back for a second. If we could pick from all of our units (excepting, let's say, the ones forced onto a specific route) on all of the Part IV pre-Tower chapters, who would we pick? Jill and Haar are pretty safe bets for every chapter, while the other fliers (Tanith, Marcia, Janaff, and Ulki) are each pretty enticing too, although Bows are a concern for the latter group, and Bird Laguz especially suffer from fog-of-war in IV-1. Beyond that, however, I'd argue it breaks down on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Mages/Healers (i.e Calill, Soren, Rhys) are nice in IV-3 and IV-5, but they don't offer any clear advantages in other maps, aside from healing utility and occasional combat. As for cavalry (i.e. Titania, Oscar, Kieran), IV-P, IV-1, and IV-2 are all pretty friendly to them, but from there it gets worse (desert, indoor/ledges, and swamp), so it's fair to imagine dropping them for some of the later chapters. Beast Laguz (i.e. Mordecai, Volug) can probably pick up the slack on the latter three chapters. As for Heather, your only free Thief, she's good in IV-1, IV-3, and IV-4, but doesn't offer a compelling reason to deploy on any of the other maps. The rest of the slots, I imagine being filled by your favorite combat infantry (i.e. Nolan, Shinon, Mia, Nephenee, Zihark, Devdan, Boyd, Gatrie).

So in summary - and just looking at units that I think there's a solid case for using outside of sheer favoritism - there are around 23 units who would be reasonable to pick from in any given chapter. But you have like 5 route-specific forced deploys on each route (unless I'm mis-remembering and they're not forced deploys?), which means only 10 slots to fill in a given chapter. Even if we assume Jill and Haar are showing up to all of those chapters, I would argue that there's still competition for the remaining 8 slots on a chapter-by-chapter basis. In IV-P, I might elect to bring in Titania, Oscar, Gatrie, Boyd, Rhys, Janaff, Ulki, and Volug. Flash forward to IV-3, though, where cavalry and armor knights make no sense, and I might sub in Heather, Soren, and Tanith instead. Then in IV-5, I bring Gatrie back for his bulk, and drop Rhys for Titania, while Soren and Shinon round out the squad. I don't think these sorts of choices are that unrealistic to make. And, to be blunt, having the option to field cavalry in IV-P, without functionally leaving them out of commission for the rest of Part IV, feels far more "flexible" than what we got in vanilla RD.

You don't have to agree, certainly, but does what I'm saying at least make sense?

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This may be the crux of our disagreement - I don't see this as inflexibility. If I can choose 10 units to field, from among 30 units, in a given chapter, then that is a more flexible scenario than choosing 10 units to field from among 15 units. Yes, even if I'm picking the same 10 units for 6 chapters in a row. It's not about the choice I make, it's about having that choice

Yep, your thinking makes sense, but in practice I don't agree. It would be cool if Fire Emblem were a series which rewarded thinking about which unit works better for a given map, but (in my experience, at least) it doesn't - it rewards picking a team and sticking with it. The experience system punishes you for changing characters... in games where weapon rank is very important, that mechanic punishes you further. Even in Three Houses, a game where the adjutant system allows me to train 1-3 extra units to swap them in for someone else if they suit a map well, in practice I find I rarely make use of this (though it might have worked if the instruct system didn't exist, I suppose).

To illustrate what I think is the difference, let's craft a more extreme example and say there was a Fire Emblem that had 50 units, and gave you all of them in chapter 1. We'll say it has a fixed deployment of 10 every map and no permadeath, for illustration's sake. If I understand you correctly, you would consider that a lot of flexibility, compared to a more standard Fire Emblem that slowly adds those units to your team over time. After all, every map is choosing 10 out of 50! And you get this choice ~30 times! But I'd consider that to be less flexible than a standard FE (e.g. Path of Radiance), because after one big earlygame choice I'd quickly be locked into a single team for the rest of the game; I'm not going to pull out a Level 1 character in a midgame chapter, so the choices for later maps become increasingly fake. By comparison, a standard game FE may have no choice for a third of its chapters, but thereafter every step of the way provides interesting choice of which characters to start using and which to bench. The choice is never actually 10/50 for me, even at the end (because I'm not pulling out a Level 1 Rolf then), but there's a lot of times the choice is effectively 10/12 or so. I consider that more flexibility... though even as I write this I can easily see why you might not!

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yep, your thinking makes sense, but in practice I don't agree. It would be cool if Fire Emblem were a series which rewarded thinking about which unit works better for a given map, but (in my experience, at least) it doesn't - it rewards picking a team and sticking with it. The experience system punishes you for changing characters... in games where weapon rank is very important, that mechanic punishes you further. Even in Three Houses, a game where the adjutant system allows me to train 1-3 extra units to swap them in for someone else if they suit a map well, in practice I find I rarely make use of this (though it might have worked if the instruct system didn't exist, I suppose)

IMO 3H is a particularly bad game for switching unit choice between chapters, because the "freeclassing" system means I can change a unit's class on a whim. Don't want to send my Valkyrie into a desert map? Alright, I'll just reclass her to Mage. Bunch of Axe units ith Lancebreaker? Let's switch Dimitri to Assassin and give him all Sword skills. The individual units are themselves far more flexible than usual, so there's less reason to swap between who you're deploying. 

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To illustrate what I think is the difference, let's craft a more extreme example and say there was a Fire Emblem that had 50 units, and gave you all of them in chapter 1. We'll say it has a fixed deployment of 10 every map and no permadeath, for illustration's sake. If I understand you correctly, you would consider that a lot of flexibility, compared to a more standard Fire Emblem that slowly adds those units to your team over time. After all, every map is choosing 10 out of 50! And you get this choice ~30 times! But I'd consider that to be less flexible than a standard FE (e.g. Path of Radiance), because after one big earlygame choice I'd quickly be locked into a single team for the rest of the game; I'm not going to pull out a Level 1 character in a midgame chapter, so the choices for later maps become increasingly fake. By comparison, a standard game FE may have no choice for a third of its chapters, but thereafter every step of the way provides interesting choice of which characters to start using and which to bench. The choice is never actually 10/50 for me, even at the end (because I'm not pulling out a Level 1 Rolf then), but there's a lot of times the choice is effectively 10/12 or so. I consider that more flexibility... though even as I write this I can easily see why you might not!

TBH I might field an untrained Rolf if there are a bunch of flying enemies (i.e. the boat maps), or if I'm trying to re-recruit Shinon.

But yes, broadly speaking, I would consider a game that gives you a ton of units up front to be more flexible than one that drip feeds them to you. Let's consider, for instance, an Ironman playthrough. If, say, Boyd dies in chapter 1 of PoR, then I'm down one unit for the next 8 or so chapters. But if I had other units, I could fill the slot he leaves behind. Maybe I could even choose between a Soldier, Fighter, and Myrmidon. In short, I would have more options than I do in the vanilla game, thereby affording me a more flexible experience.

As for the *no permadeath* point, I'm not sure how I feel about that impact on flexibility. On the one hand, being allowed to put my units in death-defying scenarios feels more flexible. But on the other hand, not being able to kill my guys off, even if I wanted to, feels less flexible. So the jury is out on that front.

I can understand and recognize that designs like RD's press the player into using a wider variety of units, and that in a certain light, this can be interpreted as "flexibility". But, unsurprisingly, I don't agree with that line of thinking. That's not to say I view RD's design as worse - rigidity can be a good design elememt! - just that I view it as less flexible than PoR, or most other games in the series.