The Protagonist

I feel like Fire Emblem has never really had a good solution to bow units. Outside of games like 7, where I like using Wil thanks to availability, 9, because Rolf, and 10, because Shinon and the tools to make him effective are handed to you, I often avoid Archers. Gaiden and 10 tried expanding their range, I think (ignore fe9 double bow, too wonky). 10 overall tried to make bows more viable, or at least more varied, which humorously created the crossbow-one-shots-every-peg problem. Enemy archers always tend to be more valuable than player ones because of the importance of enemy-phase combat. I think that terrain could be a key to making bow units effective, allowing them to exploit strategic positioning. I mean, I never thought about using archery in 13 at all, and that game has about as much terrain quality as FE1.

FE13's number one problem was sacrificing the standards of the genre for freedom in how you played the game. I actually LIKE the idea of an avatar, but not one with infinite reclass options and no class/character impact on their role in the story.

I answered the poll as indifferent, but I think a world map in 14 could be bad. A copy of the 13 map could just create another game that pushes you to overgrind and hunt second seals, etc. I like the IDEA of a world map, but it just seems hard to execute without sacrifices. Surprise me, IS. Please.

RD was the game with the fairest way of creating difficulty, I think. FE5 forced you to play specific ways with its gimmicks and endless BS, FE6 pushed enemies to the stat caps that you just had to survive somehow, mostly by exploiting the best characters and supports every time, FE13 just made giga-units with unfair skills that also forced you to use specific tactics. I didn't try the DS games on higher difficulty, and I only recently tried playing FE12, but I heard that their HMs exemplified the "mostly hard in the first few chapters" problem of FE difficulty. At least RD gave you a stat cap edge and reaction time, and managed to balance out the difficulty a little. Early Part 1 was still evil, but resetting your team repeatedly extended that difficulty, too, to some extent. Difficulty shouldn't feel cheap and it shouldn't feel limiting. Fire Emblem isn't a puzzle game genre; it shouldn't have forced solutions to each level.

Good map and level design, seriousness in the story, and general character identity. If you don't know what I mean about the last one, every character was one-dimensional with one gimmick and limited combat identity in 13. Screw that. I'd take even FE10-level imbalance over having my army be boring.

I have a strong moral objection to casual mode, but, considering the necessity of catering to casuals, the mode should probably exist. My solution is to lock story content and missions on casual mode, in order to ease players into the real game with the enticement of a more complete playthrough.

I didn't use Hellios, either. I hate the Jeigans lol.

I think it's actually the general consensus that Cattleya is bottom-tier. As for characters to use...if you're not in hard mode, every character is quite usable, and you shouldn't have trouble. If you want my noob's advice, then here: Puledra's a good crutch healer but a waste of xp since a mounted healer with better stats (although one without slayer) shows up midway through the demo. Fa's consistently useful, by most reports, though using her is a given, and Andre is widely considered borderline broken. Weiss is great, but you'll see that using him is a no-brainer. Make your pick of the axe-users, since using 3 isn't feasible, especially with a fourth in Menmus. Really, just follow your growths. Whoever gets lucky will be useful. The balance is good. Oh, and don't overuse Hellios. I benched him and never looked back, but I think I'm all but alone there. Any objections to that? This IS a game with an rng, so results may vary, and I know I'm the newbie to the forum space.

My Menmuses keep turning out great, so he overshadows Schwartz, but I find that Schwartz might get underrated due to people using his Agile Estoc enough that they forget how high his attack actually reaches with the Steel Sword and a few strength growths. I made that mistake myself. Rya has been nothing short of great for me, though, while I agree that grinding Sae'Rah as much as some people do is a waste that exaggerates her quality. Edit: Is the description of Hoikade on enemy soldiers' profiles supposed to indicate that it is the strongest nation on the continent? That seems....odd to me. Double edit: bosses feel underpowered in general to me. Rooted bosses should be stronger imo.

Oh, he's a crutch. It's surely not NECESSARY.

Joined to comment on this. I'm genuinely amazed at the polish, character balance (but in the "everyone is useful" way!), map design, and general ingenuity in this hack. The story, which exposits brilliantly, may suffer from fridge logic by a lack of explanation for events at times, but is otherwise much more mature and focused, much less self-indulgent, than most fan content I've seen for the series. I'm frankly struggling to understand how someone could resist all the tempting ideas that ruin hacks, like excessive favoritism. Your mechanics are inventive and varied without being game-breaking, your new classes are well constructed (although the Warp Knight does appear a bit rigid when it attacks, in a vein reminiscent of the standard sword animation for Rangers), your trainees are, so far, fully grindable but not broken. I'm just really, really impressed. Except that the Wonder Pupil animation looks like the Pupil is trying to pass gas. Removing the stumble was great, but it looks just a bit awkward to me, the way he leans over. I also ran into the bugs with Chapter 7 Greens giving you a Game Over, and the Chapter 8 Fa battle quotes having odd priority. I ALSO got a 14-speed Menmus at a reasonable level. Fa's way underleveled at 10, since Lord promos are in the distant future and Dark Mage Tank doesn't fall behind easily. More importantly, her speed is 11 or so. I might post screenies if someone cares enough to teach me, but I'm fairly new to even working with emulators. I'm also lazy as shit. ...Can I make the case for a promotion item on Chapter 7? I mean, even the standard game gives you a Knight's Crest at Waterside Renvall, if memory serves. One promotion before the game moves to the next portion doesn't seem out of the question, and, if chapter 9 doesn't have any, you might end up being forced to waste a lot of experience. With Weiss' killing spree in 5x and his sort-of status as the new crutch character, putting him to tier 2 is fitting, and it saves players the agony of wasting experience quite as much, considering how the aforementioned killing spree often puts him close to LEVEL 20 with 3 chapters to play before the route split. The original promotion item in FE8 matches his class also. I really like the idea of putting a Crest in 7, maybe 8, though it seems more out-of-place in the latter. Honestly, though, the broad versatility of units makes me desperately want a Master Seal, despite that being a late-game item, because I'd just love having the opportunity to make a god out of any of the awesome characters available. Also, I figure it's intentional, considering the leveling gimmick, but Shiori's Light rank doesn't go up from C, which I kinda don't like, because it feels unnecessary and punishes you for using her. I get that she isn't supposed to be trainable until her route, but Light rank isn't her power, and she's otherwise going to be forever weaker than Fa for her respective route. I suspect you thought about all of this already, given the polish on the hack, but I feel like pointing it out anyway. Love the hack. Keep up the great work. It seems like more content (Tower of Trials) will release before the next mega-update of chapters, which sounds great to me. Now to replay this on my iPad. And, with that mix of gushing and likely-unfounded criticism, I'll be off.