feplus

Your reading comprehension is poor. I did not speak to Renown items' sale price. I did not speak to total value after certain items were used. I said, simply, that a modest 1,000 Renown nets a player roughly 45K in complimentary assets. That is true. You further seem to be under the impression that I believe SpotPass units can clean up Luna+ on their own. That is false. Expensive units like Jaffar work wonders at mopping up large portions of early- and mid-game maps, making unit density manageable, while cheaper units like Jamka can clean up kills and weaken enemies for your core team. (Jamka, a more than competent archer, is especially effective at dealing with Counter units.) This is the correct application of such units. As the game progresses, the player gets plenty of gold and sellable assets; more value means more forged weapons and more SpotPass units. (A player may even consider hiring Legion early on and enjoy a bullion buffet.) Jaffar and Jamka need not suffice for the entire campaign.

Sure. Ninils' main contribution to the Elibe mythos is letting us learn more about dragons as conscious beings with complex thoughts and emotions. We get some of that through Yahn but little from Fa (a child's mind) or Idoun (a soulless vessel until the closing minutes).

Well, some people are arguing against it. Yours is a fair point; the first handful of maps are tough. Two things: 1. The mode is designed for those knowledgeable about the game's mechanics. That includes knowledge about terrain movement, specifically the ability of lords and tacticians to walk on certain water tiles (like those seen in the prologue). I rarely see newcomers to Luna+ take advantage of "the water trick," but it trivializes the second part of the prologue and helps tremendously in the following maps. 2. Can something be said to be truly difficult if it requires luck? I refer to Ch.2; Interceptor has an exceptional earlygame Luna+ walkthrough I'm sure most of you are familiar with, and he points out that even with pristine planning, the map cannot be reliably completed. Resets are required. In short: while the earlygame is tough, many players fail to take advantage of water movement and mistake chance for challenge. Take these two things into account and the first few maps, far and away the toughest, aren't so bad.

I double checked and my numbers are correct: 1,000 Renown nets you roughly 45K in assets. Nowhere did I mention recruiting SpotPass units for free. You recruit them with the free assets you're given. A solid cheap option is Jamka (prepackaged with Galeforce); a solid expensive option is Jaffar. Nowhere did I mention needing max Renown.

Let's use conservative estimates: you've played through Hard to get your bearings and played through Lunatic for a challenge; you've spent just a few hours messing with SpotPass teams and postgame content, and feel ready to tackle Luna+. This is not typical- I suspect most players who approach Luna+ will have spent much more time with the game- but let's run with it. In this scenario, you've got a modest 1000 Renown, enough for the Large bullion and all preceding items. That's, what, roughly 45K in value? You can statistically buff up your Avatar, equip him or her with Cecilia's Gale, prepare for an early reclass (probably into Dark Mage), and hire a couple of tremendously overpowered SpotPass units -- all for free. The more Renown you start with, the easier things get. None of this requires any grinding. (Though I'd ask you what I asked Topaz: if grinding is an option and makes things easier, why not use it? at what point is the time cost for grinding small enough to make not grinding an artificial restriction?)

In other words, Luna+ is easy if you take advantage of what the game gives you and don't artificially limit yourself. Yes. I believe that's precisely what I said at the beginning of this exchange.

Sounds about right, though I don't see this as problematic. One small thing: we also learn a bit about the personalities of Durban and Roland in addition to Athos / Bramimond. Oh, and as dragons go, 6 gives us a child, a villain, and a tragic figure; 7 gives us two relatable dragons to learn from and sympathize with. The games are complementary here.

Depends on the game and the time it takes to grind. For instance, a player can spend fifteen minutes grinding the Tower of Valni and trivialize Sacred Stones to the point of mindlessness. So why wouldn't you? Not employing such convenience is fine if you want to challenge yourself, but it'd be disingenuous to pretend grinding isn't an option. Same applies to the plethora of options available in Awakening. Grinding is a small slice of the pie; SpotPass units and Renown items are more significant.

Sure you can: Luna+ is a straightforward difficulty with a few tricky earlygame maps. DLC makes the mode even easier but is hardly necessary.

FE7 expands upon the mythos established in FE6, as a good prequel should. It builds on plenty of what FE6 established -- again, that includes dragons, political intrigue, Lycia, Bern, and the legendary heroes among other things. Where specifically do you think there's disconnect between 7 and 6?

I said Luna+ was straightforward, which is true. I also said Awakening suffers from a regressive difficulty curve: the first few maps are RNG-heavy and tough to get past, but, following those chapters, the game throws a bevy of broken resources your way.

But it is. People struggle with Luna+ because they limit themselves; no grinding, no SpotPass units, no SpotPass shops, no Renown items, etc. If a player uses everything the game gives him, Luna+ is straightforward. Granted, challenge runs can be tough, but that's true of any FE game.

timehopper puts it well -- the conflict with the Black Fang is a "secret war," a small-scale conflict unlike any Fire Emblem (other than arguably Thracia 776). Fighting an assassin guild rather than The Evil Empire earns you points for uniqueness. And I said previously that Elibe itself was ripe for exploration, which FE7 undoubtedly accomplishes; we learn more about the Scouring, about dragons, about Lycia, about the legendary weapons, about the eight heroes, about the political tensions which led to the events of FE6, and about the previous generation of good guys.

Okay. Awakening wasn't good with its difficulty scaling. All difficulties feature a plethora of broken options and a regressive difficulty curve (especially on vanilla Lunatic, which falls off a cliff post-Ch.5), and the jump from Hard to Lunatic was excessive. Furthermore, none of the difficulty options are remotely challenging unless you place arbitrary restrictions on yourself, which is disappointing.

An optional, player-applied challenge run is a perplexing standard by which to judge map design. Genesis offers genuinely threatening magic users (a rarity in the series), while Berserker has a plethora of chests and stealable / droppable items. Limited deployment in Genesis forces the player to choose carefully between combat units and staff units- both invaluable- while limited deployment in Berserker forces the player to choose between a healer and warper, a thief, or a second combat unit; in other words, it's a choice between faster completion, easier completion, or more goodies. Both maps appear to benefit from limited deployment.

What constitutes too few slots? Seems to me both those maps are made more strategically interesting by limiting deployment.

It's a prequel because Elibe was a world ripe for exploring further after FE6. We get to meet the parents of many FE6 protagonists, get to witness Eliwood and Hector in their primes, learn about the genesis of the Desmond / Zephiel conflict, learn more about Arcadia and the nature of dragons, and even play as one of the legendary heroes. FE7 could have been set during the Scouring, but for whatever reason the game writers decided to frame things around a smaller conflict with a smaller army, a la FE5. Considering FE7 gave us one of the more polished and engaging stories in the series, this was probably a wise decision.

Really minor, but I stumbled upon this page and had some questions. 1. Where is this background located in FE6? 2. Where is this background located in FE8? 3. Is the linked set of background sprites comprehensive or is it missing some? I seem to recall there being more snow backgrounds. Also pretty sure the fourth FE8 background was featured in FE7 (Genesis). thanks

The key isn't difficulty, but difficulty options. The more, the better. Ideally I'd like to see something along these lines: Easy ; roughly as challenging as Awakening Normal Normal Hard Hard+ ; unlockable, works the same as Awakening Luna+ but with more reasonable enemy stats Lunatic Lunatic Reverse Even more ideally I'd like to see a return of rankings, since a well-executed ranking system addresses the ways to trivialize most FEs (turtling / lowmanning / grinding), but it seems IS gave up on the idea after FE12 in favor of a world map. edit: a compromise would be having postgame maps with their own individual rankings, FE8/9 employed something similar

What motivation does a player have to rescue-chain through Chapter 2? 1. It saves turns. 2. It saves a negligible amount of real time. From a game design perspective, this is insufficient. Turn count has no value beyond self-imposed challenge runs, and turtling, while marginally slower in terms of real time, gives the player greater control over experience distribution and improves the odds of a successful map completion. There are many sound criticisms of DLuna's proposed changes, but his belief that Ch.2 is dull and needs spicing up has merit. Some ideas I believe would work well: 1. Condense the map size, particularly the length of the bottom path. Nothing drastic, but enough to reduce tedium. 2. Add a secondary objective that tangibly rewards a player willing to move quickly. For example, add a few more columns of tiles to the right side of the map and plop down a village with a red gem or elixer, then add a brigand enemy unit who will reach the village in a handful of turns. 3. Introduce two or three high-movement enemies that spawn from the west side of the map. Too many extra enemies can lead to power creep, but a few (maybe one has a horseslayer to discourage Marcus use) avoids the power creep problem while also posing a risk to slow-pace players. 4. Some combination of the above.

Surprised this run didn't employ fixed RNG. Seems more marathon-safe.

Think of funds like this: You, as the army's tactician, are trying to build up a war chest. Stat-boosting items are worth a lot of gold; your war chest would get markedly smaller if used. Five-starring the funds rank means getting a large enough war chest by the end of the game. Using valuable items makes getting a large enough war chest more difficult.

The tedium of LNM is overstated; plenty of classic games have lengthy opening / tutorial segments, LNM only has to be done once, and an experienced player can breeze through it in a quarter hour. Unlocking HHM on a fresh file can be a pain though. If you value time over money, consider buying a Gameshark or AR unit.

Naive to the point of giving the Demon King a Sacred Stone because he asked nicely?

Two years. Consider that both lords recalled a day on the town with Lyon from a year and a half prior.