What are the Easiest and Hardest Fire Emblem Games?

[Jotari]

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

I've played like 80% of it, but I've reached a place of "what's the point?" Sara died, so I can't save Eyvel. The game can just spawn ambush ballistae whenever it wants to kill my guys. And the map I stopped just before has a bunch of status staves that I have no solid answer for.

What a fun and well designed game!

[Benice]

6 hours ago, CyberZord said:

Though I was not expecting Path of Radiance to be a contender for "almost Phoenix Mode levels of easy" in regards to its difficulty.

Well, a big part of it is that I've not played the 3DS games, and that PoR was one of the last FE I played-Sacred Stones was my first, whereas PoR was after the really tricky Berwick Saga, Radiant Dawn, HHM and Three Houses Maddening playthroughs, and the former two made me grow a lot as a strategist from my start in Sacred. I had a lot more experience and knowledge going into PoR, which skews my perception a little for sure. (Even when trying to look at it without a biased lens, I do still feel like it is meaningfully easier than Sacred.)

[DaveCozy]

12 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Someone got their wires crossed on this one. Japan didn't have an easy more for Path of Radiance, the English release cut out Japan's Maniac Mode, and replaced it with a brand new easy mode. This would lead to Radiant Dawn's famous difficulty mistranslation, where they didn't change any of the modes for the English release, but named them Easy, Normal, and Hard anyway, so Japan's Normal difficulty is the English Easy, the Japanese Hard is the English Normal, and Japan's Maniac difficulty is the English Hard mode...

 

Indeed, I see where the confusion lied now.

What I meant was that the Path of Radiance JP game had no easy difficulty in terms of gameplay, the Normal mode in that game is the "easiest" difficulty there. We didn't get a Maniac difficulty.

Radiant Dawn has different names for difficulties but that is all, they are unchanged otherwise in terms of gameplay.

It's why if you insert a GameCube memory card on your Wii with an NA Path of Radiance Easy file, and try to do a transfer to Radiant Dawn on Wii (any localization), Radiant Dawn crashes. Easy difficulty from the NA version was just not something the devs programmed save transfers for. You have to delete Easy PoR data from the memory card before trying a save transfer.

Path of Radiance was my first Fire Emblem game btw and I found easy to be way too simple without having ever played a turn based tactics game. I really think Normal is a better way to first experience the game.

Edit; fwiw I also enjoyed Maddening in FE3H. The difficulty spike between Hard -> Maddening in that game is very poorly done, but compared to other FE hardest difficulties it at least feels like you always have tools to help you climb a steep hill.

Agree with the user who said that Lunatic+ in Awakening is a whole lot of BS. Random overpowered skills on all enemies is way dumb. I'm pretty sure that if the Fighter on Ch1 with a hammer has Hawkeye the chapter is basically impossible

Edited May 5, 2022 by DaveCozy

[Zapp Branniglenn]

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

It's interesting how firm a reputation Sacred Stones has for "one of, if not the easiest, in the series". I think one thing that "hardens" SS for this list, is that Normal isn't the lowest difficulty (as it is for, say, Awakening and Fates). Either way, I don't know if this reputation has been re-assessed in light of Echoes and Three Houses, despite how easy those games are on the lowest difficulty. 

From what I recall, the Easy and Normal modes of Sacred Stones are the same game. No difference in Enemy strength or volume. Easy has the tutorials turned on. Not as intrusive as Lyn Mode's tutorials, but they crop up for those first eight chapters and then they're over. It would be fair to say that Sacred Stones, like FE7, has just two difficulty settings, and people assumed Easy is easier than the Normal mode that they played. If Sacred Stones had the same naming conventions of modern fire emblem - Normal/Hard/Lunatic, it's reputation would no doubt be even worse, just as Radiant Dawn is regarded as being too hard in the US because we all played on Hard Mode unknowingly.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[SnowFire]

On Sacred Stones: I think a lot of the wackiness with SS's difficulty is that it bounces around much more than many games.  There's quite a few maps that are XP farms where the enemy will just stand around in a daze and let you safely bait just a few at a time forward for your lowbies to XP grind on (which isn't bad once in awhile lest it be impossible to safely train the Marisas of the world, but is maybe a little too common).  Then there's maps with some Surprise BS that can be very dangerous (Vigarde's Berserk Staff crew if your Restore-user isn't around at the time, spiders in the fog, etc.).  And then finally there are just some very dangerous maps, especially ones that involve moving enemies sweeping in on you Echoes/FE2 style, as well as some of the lategame maps with weakness-hitting weapons hiding in fog or otherwise hard to avoid. I don't think the dangerous maps are THAT common (the one in Eirika's route where she's ambushed from two sides, Darkling Woods), but they do exist, just in a sea of safer XP-farm maps like the hatching eggs map.  Throw in old-skool no battle saves, no turnwheel for experiences that might feel like a breeze except you already forgot that one time where you had a 30% chance of character death when you exposed that unit to too many ballista / wyvern knights / whatever, but lucked a few dodges out.

Anyway, a vague ranking from afar on the harder end of the spectrum...

1. Awakening Lunatic+ without DLC on Classic: I have no idea what they were thinking with L+.  Admittedly, balancing around some of the broken strategies the player has is tough, but Counter is such a beyond stupid skill on enemies.  The source of the infamous "reload the map until you get a skill loadout that is vaguely winnable" strategy.
2. New Mystery Lunatic Reverse Classic: I'm mostly going by reputation here, but the FE12 Prologue is already close to the mathematical limit of "winnable at all" on "merely" Lunatic, especially with the "wrong" Kris build or if you're not abusing battle saves / restarts to rig crits.  L-Reverse just seems sadistic.  (I know that once you get into the main game, there's various tricks such as General Arran, lots of Archers/Snipers, etc. to cope, but you can't GET to the maingame if you can't beat the prologue, which is already life-shorteningly stressful on Lunatic.  People who show off their 0% growths clears and so on inevitably also include convenient crits/dodges after their battle saves.)
3. Awakening Lunatic+ with DLC on Classic: Still bananas and you have to beat the first three chapters (not at all trivial!), but at least you can safely grind up Galeforce strats on DLC maps much earlier.
4. New Mystery Lunatic Classic: See above, albeit mostly for the Prologue now, for all that range-2 Dragons are pretty rude.  But surviving the Prologue is sufficiently horrible that it's worthy of mention.  (Also, I think we all played this emulated here which enables certain anti-frustration features like save states, but god help cartridge players, even though Battle Saves exist.)

There's some variations of "Casual mode turned on" for all of the above, and eventually Fates Conquest Lunatic Classic shows up for the "fair" end.  But think the above four aren't bad for "very hard to actually successfully complete".  (While there are some games like Radiant Dawn Hard which are more "Frustrating" and "Hard to build your favorite units" but are still basically completable if you set your sights lower and accept deaths.)  Also agree that even Three Houses at its most sadistic is held in check by Divine Pulse a good deal - at least in Echoes, Alm/Celica death is still outright gameover (as is Chrom/Robin death in Awakening Casual), while even 3H Classic just lets you DP through.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

21 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Put me in the Sacred Stones is harder than you remember camp. I watched an extremely experienced fire emblem player do a drunk iron man last year to prove how brainless the game was, and he lost everyone by the end of chapter 6 except Seth, Eirika, and maybe some other randos. God that map is a meat grinder. It was a soft iron man where he hit continue on Eirika's death each time. And even so he did not finish the run despite taking time to grind later. Enemy strength is relatively close to your units compared to most early games of fire emblem, and a lot of units (Ross, Neimi, Colm, Artur, Lute, Vanessa) are basically specced to die if you send them off at the first opportunity to get started on the enemies of their join chapter. You need some level of restraint, and treat each map like Part 1 of Radiant Dawn. Furthermore, the late recruits aren't really that great? And there are zero new recruits in the last four chapters. There's no Gotoh archetype, Myrrh is the closest thing and she has limited uses for her weapon. The final chapters have genuinely tough enemies that can mob and kill units that aren't maxed out on their physical defense or avoid rates. People say Seth can solo the game, but my Seth was obliterated in turn 2 of the final chapter last time I played. He doesn't have the health to tank the final boss' true damage attacks.

Eh, I ironmanned it on the highest difficulty recently enough, and still think its on the easy side. Chapter 6 was the chapter most likely to kill off a unit for me, and if my luck with Berserk staffs wasn't hilariously bad I probably wouldn't have needed to try more than once or twice. First time I brought three units capable of using restore (so its impossible for them to  berserk all of my staff units capable of restoring all on the same turn...I swear those things never miss me, no matter what the accuracy says...) the entire game was a cake walk. Far better than the blood baths I had on any of my other ironman runs...other than Path of Radiance, which only had double the deaths my FE8 ironman did, and was the other one I listed as possibly the easiest.

 

5 hours ago, SnowFire said:

People who show off their 0% growths clears and so on inevitably also include convenient crits/dodges after their battle saves.)

I mean there is a no crit rigging 0% growths clear of Lunatic reverse New Mystery on Youtube if you are curious (see spoiler box blow). Not my own run, just one I have seen.

Spoiler

 

 

[drattakbowser]

In my opinion :

- Easy : 1, 2, 7(Lyn), 8(Eirika), 14 (Birthright), 16(Azure Moon) and 16(Verdant Wind)

- Normal : 3, 4, 7(Eliwood), 8(Ephraim), 9, 13, 14(Revelation), 15 and 16(Crimson Flower)

- Hard : 5, 6, 7(Hector), 10, 11, 12, 14(Conquest) and 16(Silver Snow)

Edited May 8, 2022 by drattakbowser

[MadBoar]

Here is how I would order the difficulty. This tier list only focuses on the more difficult fire emblems; the easy ones are ignored. I don't know where Thracia ranked would be, because I haven't attempted it yet. The ranked runs of the Tellius games refer to bonus experience. 

S tier difficulty:  Hector Hard mode S rank, all chapters.  Path of Radiance maniac mode ranked ( work in progress for me)

A tier: Binding blade hard mode SS rank

A minus tier: Radiant Dawn hard mode ranked ( high rating mostly due to Geoffrey's Charge)

B tier: New mystery lunatic reverse ranked, Conquest lunatic, Three Houses maddening

C tier: Thracia unranked (work in progress for me) 

D tier:   Awakening Lunatic plus

E tier: Shadow Dragon H5 ( even with no warps and no save tiles), Echoes blitzkreig award/fire emblem award (hard mode), Cindered Shadows hard

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by MadBoar

[henrymidfields]

I would consider Binding Blade to be harder than Conquest in Normal mode.

For one, I've noticed that the units' stat numbers in Conquest didn't seem to matter as much as they did in Binding Blade thanks to extensive skills in general, and rally skills in particular, and other ways to temporarily boost your stats for the rounds. I've also noticed that enemy strength seem more on par with your units, and you don't have to worry about being frugal with EXP feeds thanks to the EXP payout system in Conquest being similar to Pokemon Black and White with huge boosts given to lower-levelled units. Item management is also easier as you don't have to make purchases in-chapters, but can buy them in between. Finally, attack stance allows adjacent units to safely participate in battles and gain EXP without any of the danger, which makes raising low-levelled units easier.

With Binding Blade, the enemies are generally stronger than you. Combined that with higher avoid boosts from terrain, lower weapon accuracy, and no way to temporarily raise your Skill/Luck numbers, you're getting a lot of trouble getting the attacks to connect. You also lack a lot of QoLs from COnquest that I mentioned.

[SnowFire]

Re Eltosian: Eh, the exception that proves the rule.  There's somebody who does Ironman challenges of Lunatic+ Awakening, too, but it involves very very specific strategies that make the game not actually very Fire Emblem-y.  (Lots of sitting around with a range-2 weapon equipped in enemy phase to ensure Counter doesn't kill the 4 overleveled units you deployed.)  That's cool somebody did it, but I've also watched strong players do Ironman attempts of FE12 Lunatic (never mind Lunatic Reverse!) and fail at it.  (And note that the linked video involved the +2 Def boon, Knight Kris cheeze...  and still barely survived with 1 HP after unequipping Kris's Lance...  to FE13's credit, you can still beat Lunatic+ with a silly build like +Lck -Spd Robin, that isn't a big deal, but that isn't true of FE12, where many Kris builds just can't win.)

Re MadBoar's list: I'm not sure I'd count "personal challenges" and the like, i.e. whatever "ranked" FE9/FE10 means.  That you got the maximum amount of bonus XP every mission, I guess?  There's no way to check that, though, short of streaming the entire playthrough and knowing in advance the optimal amount to get, so I don't think it's really an expected playstyle.  In the same way, Hector Hard S rank all chapters is definitely quite difficult, but that's mostly due to the bug where the extra chapters don't increase the par on the Tactics count at all.  The game will still give you an S rank if you skip some of the X chapters (i.e. the Kishuna nonsense) to make it so that getting the optimal Tactics rating is more feasible, and I can't really see much reason to "ban" that strategy.

I'd definitely argue that Shadow Dragon H5 is *much* tougher than Echoes Blitzkrieg award (both at E)!  I got Blitzkrieg no problem, but SD H3 kicked my butt, let alone H5.  I could probably handle H5 now if I went back to it, but SD Hard has some nasty tricks that Echoes does not have - ninja reinforcements with crazy stat inflation, battle saves are not as powerful as Mila's Turnwheel, etc.  I'd also argue that 3H Maddening shouldn't be so high up.  It's certainly very frustrating at first, but once you get access to various cheesy things, the player can fight back against all the broken, notably with stuff like Snipers with Killer Bow+s and a 90-100 crit rate on Hunter's Volley that will just murder nearly anything in the game from high range, including full monster lifebars once a gap in their shield is opened, or unhittable Alert Stance+ Evasion Ring flyers for safe baiting.  I'd call it easier than Awakening Lunatic+.

Edited May 13, 2022 by SnowFire

[MadBoar]

On 5/13/2022 at 1:19 PM, SnowFire said:

Re MadBoar's list: I'm not sure I'd count "personal challenges" and the like, i.e. whatever "ranked" FE9/FE10 means.  That you got the maximum amount of bonus XP every mission, I guess?  There's no way to check that, though, short of streaming the entire playthrough and knowing in advance the optimal amount to get, so I don't think it's really an expected playstyle.  In the same way, Hector Hard S rank all chapters is definitely quite difficult, but that's mostly due to the bug where the extra chapters don't increase the par on the Tactics count at all.  The game will still give you an S rank if you skip some of the X chapters (i.e. the Kishuna nonsense) to make it so that getting the optimal Tactics rating is more feasible, and I can't really see much reason to "ban" that strategy.

I'd definitely argue that Shadow Dragon H5 is *much* tougher than Echoes Blitzkrieg award (both at E)!  I got Blitzkrieg no problem, but SD H3 kicked my butt, let alone H5.  I could probably handle H5 now if I went back to it, but SD Hard has some nasty tricks that Echoes does not have - ninja reinforcements with crazy stat inflation, battle saves are not as powerful as Mila's Turnwheel, etc.  I'd also argue that 3H Maddening shouldn't be so high up.  It's certainly very frustrating at first, but once you get access to various cheesy things, the player can fight back against all the broken, notably with stuff like Snipers with Killer Bow+s and a 90-100 crit rate on Hunter's Volley that will just murder nearly anything in the game from high range, including full monster lifebars once a gap in their shield is opened, or unhittable Alert Stance+ Evasion Ring flyers for safe baiting.  I'd call it easier than Awakening Lunatic+.

On the rankings page, the game records the number of screens you visited. So you can know if you got the S rank while visiting every chapter. For a "complete" run, you could "ban" the strategy of skipping chapter. I forgot the exact number of screens that indicates that every chapter was visited. Going to the last Kishina chapter actually makes things much more difficult. You have to beat victory or death in 20 or less turns to access it. You lose out on so much experience by beating victory or death in  20 or less turns. I one turned that kishuna chapter with warp. Visiting 19xx also makes things more difficult. You lose a few turns while carefully setting up the kishina kill, and you lose 600 experience from training nils in lyn's mode.  

 This challenge can be expanded further.  For each chapter, you get tactician stars based on your overall rank for each individual chapter. I would love to see someone get the theoretical maximum in tactician stars , in a non-TAS run! This would include getting 6150 experience in victory of death, while beating it in 15 turns. While maintaining funds and winning 40 percent of your battles. And also getting 2800 experience in part 1 of the final chapter. That should be possible, if you abuse the warp staff. Seriously, someone needs to attempt this!  Completing this challenge would be a truly perfect run, as the number of tactician stars are recorded on the rankings page!

For 3H maddening, I ranked its difficulty based off my my first play through. During my first run (Silver Snow), all of 3H's new mechanics were unfamiliar to me. Chapter 5 was horrible, as I did not know the mechanics behind monsters and batallions. I refused to use divine pulse on any chapters, and so I had a lot of restarts. The path is very long to the boss, and that boss is the first monster that appears in 3H. It took me some time to learn how to efficiently defeat monsters.  I was also unfamiliar with recruiting from different houses, so no Lysithea and no Annette.  Three houses maddening was only difficult on my first play though, specifically early game.  The other runs for the three other routes were very easy. I never have and never will use divine pulses. I was also unaware about  impregenable wall, and also the gambit which allows you to survive one fatal hit. I used those two gambits frequently in my future playthroughs of the other routes. I did however, abuse Bernie's enclose combat art. And I slowly windsweeped the final boss with Byleth, to prevent an unlucky critical. 

Awakening Lunatic  + can be beaten easily, but tediously,  be beaten with dumb tactics. I previously posted about my method of beating chapter 5. I forgot what chapter you get access to nosferatu, but that is where it becomes 0 IQ. Like the last 15 chapters of lunatic plus took about 1 hour. 

In SD H5, those early game bandit bosses were so ridiculously stat inflated, that it was hilarious! For most of the game, it is all about holding choke points. 

For the Tellius games, the games record the bonus experience. In path of radiance, the recording of the bonus experience is kept if you don't use it. In radiant dawn, you can find records of the bonus experience for each individual chapter in the base menu. 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by MadBoar

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, MadBoar said:

For the Tellius games, the games record the bonus experience. In path of radiance, the recording of the bonus experience is kept if you don't use it. In radiant dawn, you can find records of the bonus experience for each individual chapter in the base menu. 

Oh wow. I didn't know that about the data transfer. That goes a little way to explain why they made the whole "3 tier system but we're going to ignore the first tier almost completely" set up. Sounds like you could do some ridiculous unit building by hoarding all of your bexp in Path of Radiance and then immediately promoting Meg or someone to third tier in the early chapters of Radiant Dawn.

[Vicious Sal]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Oh wow. I didn't know that about the data transfer. That goes a little way to explain why they made the whole "3 tier system but we're going to ignore the first tier almost completely" set up. Sounds like you could do some ridiculous unit building by hoarding all of your bexp in Path of Radiance and then immediately promoting Meg or someone to third tier in the early chapters of Radiant Dawn.

BEXP does not transfer from PoR to RD

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Vicious Sal said:

BEXP does not transfer from PoR to RD

Ah, I misinterpreted the comment. They just meant the game let's you know how much the save file has accumulated.

[SonjAmalet]

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