So, what difficulty have you chosen?

[Taho]

Hard classic for my first playthrough. I might scale up to Maddening on a second playthrough, if I can be bothered watching that opening one more time... The power rangers music really made me cringe... 😬

I'm finding Hard/classic to be a fair challenge once you get into real battles.

[Viberum]

Maddening Classic!! It’ll be fun!! I’ll be using characters I like so it’ll be nice! Lets’s see how long I’ll last.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

Doing Maddening Classic Ironman with DLC. I've lost Framme (who was virtually useless) and Etie (bummed about thud one; I liked her personality.) If DD dies I restart the chapter, so it isn't a true traditional Ironman, but this is the kind of experience I want for muy fittest run, ya know? Honestly it isn't all that bad expect the bosses. Idk if they're the same on lower difficulties, but they get a revive, can't be broken, and have absurd stats. The last two I legit had to hope and pray for misses or crits for the win without losing anyone.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Xylaugheon Daily said:

Doing Maddening Classic Ironman with DLC. I've lost Framme (who was virtually useless) and Etie (bummed about thud one; I liked her personality.) If DD dies I restart the chapter, so it isn't a true traditional Ironman, but this is the kind of experience I want for muy fittest run, ya know? Honestly it isn't all that bad expect the bosses. Idk if they're the same on lower difficulties, but they get a revive, can't be broken, and have absurd stats. The last two I legit had to hope and pray for misses or crits for the win without losing anyone.

I've found Framme to very useful. The guard ability offers a lot of utility. Especially when you get another unit with the ability. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Maddening Classic here. I've done the first three chapters; Chapter 3 felt competent, but fair. Vander being completely OP early obviously limits how hard the early game can be without dipping into Awakening L/L+ stat inflation, and I'm glad they haven't gone for that. Break and backup are intersting new mechanics to consider.

[renegadeandy]

So far I appear to be the only one who has chosen Normal / Classic. Makes me double check everything and be more considered while I get back into Fire Emblem games and consider Hard / Classic!

[bookwormbabe29]

I have not started YET, but I think I might go with normal mode. I would normally start on hard, but I want to test out a lot of characters my first run, and that will likely take grinding. And since grinding is well, harder on hard and maddening, I am thinking normal mode would be the best first run to go wild and test things out. I fear it will be too easy, though I guess there's only one way to find out. I get to pick it up tomorrow (finally!) so wish me luck 😉

[eclipse]

Doing Hard/Classic.  Everyone that isn't a designated tank feels really squishy.  Other than that, I've been able to keep mostly everyone I want to level up to speed.

[Taho]

I'm on chapter 7 now, and the game is starting to feel increasingly easy in Hard/Classic. I hope difficulty will spike when I face enemy bosses with emblem rings.

[Smokie1437]

Hard/Classic. I kind of wanted to do Maddening first try like I did in 3H, but then I changed my mind because I didn't want to take too long to go through the story. But I'm around chapter 9 and the game is starting to feel pretty easy now, hopefully that's just temporary.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

I've found Framme to very useful. The guard ability offers a lot of utility. Especially when you get another unit with the ability.

I find that ability of little use because on Maddening you aren't only pulling one unit, but several when you consider all the enemies in range that you couldn't get the kill on the previous turn.

[Xylaugheon Daily]

1 hour ago, Taho said:

I'm on chapter 7 now, and the game is starting to feel increasingly easy in Hard/Classic. I hope difficulty will spike when I face enemy bosses with emblem rings.

Have you been grinding? I know on Maddening it is not a thing. No skirmishes no tower nothing. And I'd say on the whole maps are manageable save for bosses.

[Ririn]

I went with Normal/Casual. I mostly play my first run on normal settings to enjoy the characters and story. If ever I feel like playing it again if there will be a story expansion, I'll probably go hard/casual. 

[Imuabicus]

On 1/21/2023 at 12:50 PM, Xylaugheon Daily said:

I've lost Framme (who was virtually useless)

Others mentioned it, but her guard skill is pretty useful when luring bosses... taking 20% from a 28 might attack and having the damage on a healer and not the lure that wants to attack is pretty nice.

In theory. I´ve forgotten about it so far, or enemy formations were set up so that I had to go deeper into enemy range than Framme woulda survived 😕

 

Just beat chapter 7, these boss formations are something else.

Have I been getting unlucky, or does Boucheron feel especially prone to getting crit?

So many units so few deployments slots.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Others mentioned it, but her guard skill is pretty useful when luring bosses... taking 20% from a 28 might attack and having the damage on a healer and not the lure that wants to attack is pretty nice.

 

Very much so! And when you have two Qi Adepts you can have them stand beside each other and guard each other, covering themselves and your body bait. You have to be careful of enemies doubling attack weak units you're guarding though. As some times they can overcome the guard on the first attack and kill on the second. But if you work from an angle you have two QI Adepts guard the same unit and they can actually take two guarded hits.

What really annoys me about this ability, however, is that when your Qi Adept levels up, they're considered "not at full HP" anymore and you need to heal them >.> Usually that particular feature of the series is a boon, as you can heal that 1HP for experience, but I think it's time they gave you that HP back when you level up.

[renegadeandy]

@JotariI think your point about Guard - and how if you level up you can no longer use it as you are not at full HP. Seems 'odd'. It doesn't feel that natural and more of a bug than an intended design, as there isn't a good explanation as to why it would be that way. The experience of that unit is beyond what it was before the level up, so making them less able on the next turn is a bit poor.

[Imuabicus]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Very much so! And when you have two Qi Adepts you can have them stand beside each other and guard each other, covering themselves and your body bait. You have to be careful of enemies doubling attack weak units you're guarding though. As some times they can overcome the guard on the first attack and kill on the second. But if you work from an angle you have two QI Adepts guard the same unit and they can actually take two guarded hits.

I´ll be honest, I´ve been so strapped for deployment slots and the dmg from player units still feels so low that using Jean looked... unlikely. I don´t think I´ve ever used Body Arts so far. And with Micaiah bringing the big heals... yeah he´s comfy on the bench.

Then again, i just got me first promotion. Maybe that´ll ease up things. One hooray for +1 stats.

 

The Veteran-Skill is making me feel conflicted. I understand the nessecity to uncheese flier/armor bosses but against armor dudes it makes physical weapons virtually useless (only up to chapter 8). And not being able to break the boss of all things... that´s a lotta damage.

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

What really annoys me about this ability, however, is that when your Qi Adept levels up, they're considered "not at full HP" anymore and you need to heal them >.> Usually that particular feature of the series is a boon, as you can heal that 1HP for experience, but I think it's time they gave you that HP back when you level up.

FERDINAND VO-

 

Actually, can you use it offensively? Like have Framme move 1 space away from the boss, have her guard and then attack with another unit from a guarded space? Does that work?

[szechuan]

On 1/22/2023 at 9:23 AM, Taho said:

I'm on chapter 7 now, and the game is starting to feel increasingly easy in Hard/Classic. I hope difficulty will spike when I face enemy bosses with emblem rings.

Same here. I had a pretty fun time in prior chapters, having to even use my 10 rewinds in Chapter 6 and reset the tutorial with Lumera... but Chapter 7 was just a cakewalk; not a single rewind/reset, no units lost, almost all oneshots... And I haven't grinded or done any paralogues, and instabenched Vander.... Should I worry that I reached the point where my units are invincible, at level 7? Will having more units to spread EXP on balance things out?

 

[Scaramuccia]

10 minutes ago, szechuan said:

Same here. I had a pretty fun time in prior chapters, having to even use my 10 rewinds in Chapter 6 and reset the tutorial with Lumera... but Chapter 7 was just a cakewalk; not a single rewind/reset, no units lost, almost all oneshots... And I haven't grinded or done any paralogues, and instabenched Vander.... Should I worry that I reached the point where my units are invincible, at level 7? Will having more units to spread EXP on balance things out?

I would wait till chapter 11 - many people mention difficulty spike somewhere around it.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

I would wait till chapter 11 - many people mention difficulty spike somewhere around it.

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA, holy fuck in a hamster cage is Chapter 11 a doozy. It's taken me the entire day just to clear it. Makes me almost wish Maddening had Chapter Saves because everything needs to more or less go perfectly to get through it without losing a unit. My Qi Adepts don't even get to use guard because they're devoting every turn to using Obstruct and Freeze to fight against the onslaught.

Spoiler

And you'd think once you're part way through and you get the gimmick back it'd be easy, but then they sent the Hounds in and you have to LTC it to get out alive. Time Rewind is still busted though so I managed to clear it on the first try where I managed to reach your reinforcements without losing a unit, but so many goddamn times I lost someone on the same turn I got to the cutscene.

I had to early promote Alear at lv 13 to make sure he had enough move to get through it. But I don't think that should be much of an issue since they're giving us Awakening style promotions. I should probably just promote all my units now.

Obstruct is also just a fantastic thing for the series. It gives you amazing control of the battlefield.

3 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I´ll be honest, I´ve been so strapped for deployment slots and the dmg from player units still feels so low that using Jean looked... unlikely. I don´t think I´ve ever used Body Arts so far. And with Micaiah bringing the big heals... yeah he´s comfy on the bench.

Then again, i just got me first promotion. Maybe that´ll ease up things. One hooray for +1 stats.

 

The Veteran-Skill is making me feel conflicted. I understand the nessecity to uncheese flier/armor bosses but against armor dudes it makes physical weapons virtually useless (only up to chapter 8). And not being able to break the boss of all things... that´s a lotta damage.

FERDINAND VO-

 

Actually, can you use it offensively? Like have Framme move 1 space away from the boss, have her guard and then attack with another unit from a guarded space? Does that work?

I'm pretty sure you can't. I'm pretty sure I tried it on player phase and it didn't work.

Edited January 23 by Jotari

[Taho]

2 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

I would wait till chapter 11 - many people mention difficulty spike somewhere around it.

Hurray for difficulty spikes! Can't wait to play it.

[Usana]

I haven't started yet either but will probably go with Hard/Classic unless people keep mentioning Hard getting too easy.

But first I must finish out some more of my backlog. I need to clear Trails from Zero yet. I am thinking of trying to slot Engage in inbetween the finishing of Zero and the release of Azure but if it takes me too far into February to finish Zero(I am hoping to finish by my Birthday 2/2, but those games take forever so even if I am on the second to last chapter. . . ), I may want to hold off since I have a bad habit of not getting back into Fire Emblem games if I get interrupted mid-play through(never did finish all of the routes in Fates/3Houses because of that). And I worry this one will be worse for that than previous entries since the art style really does NOT engage me at all. I am hoping it will grow on me once I start playing, wouldn't be the first time I disliked a game's character designs at first but came to at least accept them later. Anyways I do have the Divine Edition sitting around for whenever I get to it.

[szechuan]

10 minutes ago, Usana said:

I haven't started yet either but will probably go with Hard/Classic unless people keep mentioning Hard getting too easy.

But first I must finish out some more of my backlog. I need to clear Trails from Zero yet. I am thinking of trying to slot Engage in inbetween the finishing of Zero and the release of Azure but if it takes me too far into February to finish Zero(I am hoping to finish by my Birthday 2/2, but those games take forever so even if I am on the second to last chapter. . . ), I may want to hold off since I have a bad habit of not getting back into Fire Emblem games if I get interrupted mid-play through(never did finish all of the routes in Fates/3Houses because of that). And I worry this one will be worse for that than previous entries since the art style really does NOT engage me at all. I am hoping it will grow on me once I start playing, wouldn't be the first time I disliked a game's character designs at first but came to at least accept them later. Anyways I do have the Divine Edition sitting around for whenever I get to it.

I HATED the artstyle at first too, and I still hate Alear's design, but the sheer colorfulness of EVERYTHING in the game is susprisingly cohesive and distinctive. It just works when you consider the whole package and yeah, it sets a different tone, but it somehow works.

That being said, waiting some time to play a FE is always worth it. I entered Three Hosues post-Cindered Shadows and benefitted from QOL improvements over patches, DLC characters, etc. So it's really a good idea to wait on it if you have other priorities.

[Scaramuccia]

54 minutes ago, szechuan said:

It just works when you consider the whole package and yeah, it sets a different tone, but it somehow works.

Because from the design point of view Engage is a masterpiece. The style isn't everyone cup of tea, but every single detail works to create this style - even the fact that Vander looks and behaves older than his age(he is 45, but behaves like an old grandpa) is consistent with the style - for a teenager 45 year old person is old and boring.

[Use the Falchion]

On 1/21/2023 at 2:27 AM, Taho said:

The power rangers music really made me cringe... 😬

Not gonna lie, as a fan of Power Rangers, I unironically love it. Engage is such a Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe, and with major icons of my childhood dying last year. (Rest in Power JDF and Kevin Conroy), I'm totally fine with that. 

 

Anyways, I chose Hard/Classic. I usually do Normal/Classic for first playthroughs, but I wanted to challenge myself this time around, and challenged I have been!