fatgamecat

Someone call the Nintendo cops, he's "abusing" the RNG and playing the game wrong. From now on, I'm going to call all rainbow potion use "Pot Abuse". No, getting MU +2 or so speed in the prologue isn't the same as Pot Abusing and giving several of your party +2 to all of their stats with enough uses to last the entire game.

You mention "wifi features" then immediately start talking about Growth Drops with no mention of the wifi store, yet Growth Drops are DLC that "=/= wifi", despite needing to use wifi to download the DLC. Ok then. What is your experience with this game that led you to that conclusion? How did it sound that way? That wasn't my intention at all.

Rainbow Pot lets you cut off turns on some chapters, not just add some reliability to an unpotted run. It also makes the early-mid game significantly easier. Also if you're talking about "wifi features" in general, the wifi store lets you cut off turns by buying extra rescue staves. I think you might be underestimating how much easier the wifi features make lunatic mode.

Don't sweat it. Just look on the bright side, you'll be one of the very few people to clear Lunatic' without wifi features. No doubt you'll get a triple A too.

I did use Luke, he's one of the few viable characters on Lunatic' as a myrm/SM. Although he's more around Sirius's level and not the Royal Air Force (lol).

Good luck on your run. Also thumbs up on not using the Rainbow Pwntion. I used Rody on my Lunatic Reverse run but regretted it, as he was always lagging behind. Should have used Draug instead. Neither of them are amazing on Lunatic' but I'd give the edge to Draug.

Thanks, that's very kind of you.

Let's see what my "mediocre" (oh brother) guide said: "although his base stats are mediocre for a promoted unit. Unlike Aran, he'll grow into a decent permanent party member although his stats will lag behind your other units. Once his Dracoknight SPD starts to look a little lame, switch him to SM permanently." "Starts out strong, but his mediocre bases catch up to him and he'll struggle mid-late game. Even as a SM his SPD will struggle to keep up with mid- late game enemies."

Why not try "Determinstic Emblem"? Everyone has 100% hit, 0% crit, 0% growths. Awesome, right?

Since the translation patch has been out for a while, I'm wondering who else has cleared Lunatic' and what their run conditions were. I doubt anyone will do a Lunatic' run exactly like the one I did, but I'm interested in how everyone else has played through it. My run again: No Wi-Fi features (including rainbow pot and growth drop). No usage of 'everybody's situation' weapons/items. Get every possible recruit and chest/item drop with no deaths while getting low turn counts. No exploits or glitches. It's a pain in the ass going out of your way to get items and recruits that normally aren't worth the effort/turn counts.

There is nothing in FE12 that lets you trivialize Lunatic Reverse' difficulty like you can in Awakening or FE11 (Warp staves). Rainbow Potion is about as good as it gets. Stat boosted MU is good early-midgame but does not last. Strategy = difficulty. A highly difficult game mode like Lunatic Reverse will be puzzle-like because it requires precise and complex strategy. When people say "I want more options to do things" they mean they want an easier game where there are more strategies not likely to end in failure. Whether a game is measurably difficult or balanced doesn't have anything to do with how subjectively fun it is for someone, of course. Even though FE12 is very difficult and well balanced against the player, you might not find Lunatic mode to be very fun.

Difficulty is not balance. Balance is generally the effectiveness of features the player has access to. If there are a few options the player has available to them that are extremely effective relative to the other ones, it's an imbalanced game. FE12 Lunatic does have a lot of unviable recruits, but that's not a major balance issue. There's not much RNG involved in getting an AAA, esp. if you're using the Rainbow Potion. FE12 Lunatic is one of the most balanced FE modes because not only is there no feature to trivialize the game with (although Rainbow Pot does make it a good deal easier), but they went out of their way to prevent boss chipping and such.

I will admit the lack of viable units in Lunatic is a balance issue in terms of the roster you have access to. However, I'd rather have a restricted viable cast list than access to units or features that easily trivialize the game's difficulty. FE12's balance against the player is preferable to FE13's balance in favor of the player.

Yes, SRW UX is on the 3DS. I was just giving my opinion on the latest SRW to be released. You can get most SRW games used on ebay for $30 or less.

UX is one of my least favorite SRWs so far in terms of gameplay. It's painfully easy, boring and repetitive level design, and the UI is outdated compared to Z2 and 2nd OG. I liked Z2-2 a lot more because it had a lot more interesting level design and variety, and it felt fun to do a no upgrade run of it. Even Puzzle Robo has been disappointingly simple so far. You'd have to really, really love the series to get anything out of UX. Yes PSP is region free, but PSN rejects non-Japanese credit cards, so you will be paying a huge markup for Japanese prepaid PSN cards if you want to download this new SRW game legit.

Awakening set a bad precedent for difficulty. I'd hope it's more balanced and well designed with better level design like FE12.

I wouldn't say it's that easy to AAA lunatic reverse, but I think they needed S, SS, or SSS scores as well. It's still better than nothing.

FE12 rank details according to: http://wiki.livedoor.jp/nds_fe/d/%C6%F1%B0%D7%C5%D9%A1%A6%A5%E2%A1%BC%A5%C9 Tactics - Raises if you get the good ending, clear gaiden chapters, recruit allies, and visit "village events". Survival - Counts allied deaths, not including recruitable allies that end up dying. Speed - Self explanatory. There might be different speed goals depending on difficulty level, but they aren't detailed on the wiki.

To me the question of balance is whether the player has access to features that can significantly reduce the game's difficulty. In that regard FE12 is a very balance game. It also helps that even on Lunatic Reverse there is little reliance on RNG to earn an AAA score assuming good strategy. What design choices were you thinking of?

Whether anyone enjoyed it isn't related to whether it's balanced. But yes I did enjoy it.

SRW 64 is a pretty easy game. It can get boring with the huge maps you have to run across though. Anyone playing UX?

FE12 is a very balanced game on Lunatic. There is nothing the player can do to trivialize the game's difficulty like in most SRPGs. Most of the cast being fodder is par for the course for difficult tactics games.

I tend to mostly look at balance issues that make the game easier for the player, as those are more important for maintaining a challenge. With that said, the Rainbow Potion makes the game somewhat easier, but it's far from an iwin button. More like a boost that will help the better players cut off a few turns here and there, but won't save anyone with bad strats. My Unit is probably the most imbalanced part of the game, esp. a Knight MU with +DEF stat boosts. Early-mid game enemies on Lunatic Reverse don't pose much of a threat to MU if his DEF is so high that they barely chip him. Late or end game however he can be killed pretty easily as enemies will have capped stats and uber forges. Overall clearing FE12 lunatic reverse with all A ranks and low turn counts is a daunting challenge even if you use knight MU and the rainbow potion. Easily one of the most difficult FE challenges in the entire series.

Check out this video of a Japanese player (not me) clearing the Cave shoot em up Mushihime-sama Futari 1.01 on Ultra difficulty. This is easily one of the most difficult shoot em ups I have ever seen, right next to Daioujou's 2nd loop. Get ready to hand in your gamer card after watching this.

"How is this game supposed to be played on H5 efficiently?" Depends on your definition of efficient, which is a matter of opinion.