Unsight

Lapis is a Brodian character that you can use pretty much as soon as you get her. She has the advantage all Brodians get in that their competition for slots amounts to Firene + starters. Unless you're very attached to many of your friends from Firene, you're going to want to deploy Lapis. If you get a couple levels on her in her join map then she can begin doubling slower enemies as early as the next map. Lapis has four final classes that are popular: Swordmaster Hero Wyvern Knight Wolf Knight Swordmaster is fine on Normal but in Maddening you end up being fairly squishy. Even with a forged, engraved killer sword, you'll still have issues with getting kills and you're going to take hits and Lapis doesn't like taking hits. Roy's Sword Power can fix this somewhat and you can end up swinging something like 40+ vs defenses in the 30 range but this isn't enough for a kill even on a crit and you're going to lose over half your HP if you get hit once. Griffon Knight ends up in the exact same situation. You're flying now but you're still having issues killing the enemy and you're still taking hits that you can't afford to take. Hero is fine on Normal, Hard, and Maddening. You're not using Lapis for her combat prowess but as a Chain Attack, Brave Assist, and Dual Assist bot. This is a perfectly fine way to use her but I don't like it for two reasons. The first reason is that anyone can do this. Unless you're committing to a team of backup units which is surprisingly viable then you have better options for this. It makes good use of Lapis' passive but that's about all. Later on in the campaign, units like Goldmary join who do it better than Lapis ever could. The second reason is that Lapis has supports with a lot of characters you probably won't be using. You lose a lot of value when half of Lapis' support list is sitting on the bench. Wyvern Knight is very popular among a crowd of players who really want everyone to be a Wyvern Knight. This will give her over 10 points of Strength which are very welcome however it will also tank her speed into territory where some enemies are doubling her. With low build and medium speed, you're relying an awful lot on Air Raid to simply avoid being doubled let alone double enemies yourself. This can work on Normal and Hard but you're going to run into big problems in Maddening. Wolf Knight is her final build and the one I'm a fan of. Daggers are low weight weapons so Lapis' build doesn't cause problems. Lapis can get up to ~40 attack with forged silver daggers late game letting her chip and poison the bulky enemies with 30+ defense while still maintaining enough speed to double them. 1~2 range lets her poke at a lot of enemies that she would otherwise get mauled by. You can give her Lucina Emblem to make her a pretend hero while being able to exploit Bonded Shield strategies. Granted, there are other units that can do Bonded Shield shenanigans but if you're taking Lapis to the lategame on Maddening then you're already making sacrifices to keep her viable. Maddening Rating: 5/10 Lapis is useful when you get her. She can fill a role in your army until you have someone better to replace her with. She has a lot of build options on Normal, fewer on Hard, and fewer still on Maddening. With enough investment, you can take her to the end of the game in any difficulty. Be very careful where you position her because while Lapis has several talents surviving 2 hits is not one of them.

I like Fire Emblem Engage. It's the culmination of so many great things in one game. Vander is incredibly dapper and also one of the best, if not the best, Jagens in the entire franchise. He has good accuracy and decent strength so he can chip enemies down but not enough speed to double nor enough strength to accidentally kill. He has enough HP to take hits for weaker characters and can bait enemies toward him for your weaker units. His class skill/passive is unfortunate but it's the only thing subtracting from his perfection. He does exactly what you want a Jagen to do without being useless or overpowered (yeah, Seth and Marcus, I'm calling you out). Every unit outside of Vander is viable.* Not only that, but you're getting a constant stream of immediately useful units. Whether you're playing an Iron Man game where you don't reset on unit death or you've just had bad RNG for random growth, the game helps you by giving you new, viable units the entire way. Some units require more investment than others but it's nowhere near previous installments where you could dump 30+ levels into a character and they'd still end up bad. The map design is amazing. Chapter 4 might be one of the best-designed maps in franchise history. You have two units holding out against enemies that you have to get to. You're encouraged to be proactive and split your army right away. There are optional objectives that can be risky to go for. There's terrain to work with or around as well as choke points to use or defend. The enemy even gets reinforcements that throw you for a loop. It's such a great map and Engage has lots of great maps. The game is colorful and bright. Each character has an interesting, unique design that makes them distinctive and they're placed against a constantly changing backdrop of green, blue, red, black, yellow, etc. There's a lot of variety in what you're looking at which not all past Fire Emblem installments have done quite as well. The time rewind is a great mechanic. Nothing is more salt-inducing than playing a very long Radiant Dawn or Fates map only to have a mistake or unlucky crit at the last minute cause you to lose a unit forcing you to restart the entire map. The ability to negate bad RNG on long maps lets you enjoy the map sans frustration. SP is super nice. Fates asked the player to do some very complicated cast pairing and child-planning to get "the good abilities." Three Houses forced you into hours upon hours of classes and monastery management. Being able to equip any ring, gain SP, and buy whatever you want for your units is very refreshing. You spend less of your time doing things that almost feel like chores and more of it just playing the game. Emblems fix things. If I need a unit to be faster, I can staple Lyn to them and they are faster. If I need a unit to be tough, I can duct tape Ike to their back and they are tougher. It's an unparalleled level of character customization and between buyable skills, stat boosts, and engage skills it opens up so many great options. Maddening is good. The Fire Emblem franchise has a lot of ups and downs with difficulty modes. Some games get it right, some games do not, and some get it very, very wrong. Maddening in Engage does it right and fixed growth is excellent as it lets everyone share the same experience to an extent. You no longer live and die by the RNG. There are more good things to say and some bad things too. Some of the story complaints are a bit overwrought. As someone who is (at the time of writing this) replaying Fire Emblem Fates Revelations, there is an entire universe of bad writing that Engage isn't anywhere near. Anyone 0/10'ing Engage's story is just being dramatic. * We're going to quietly pretend Jade/Maddening doesn't exist and just about every unit on the next 2 maps after joining doesn't double her.

Chloe is a fun, genuinely great unit in Fire Emblem Engage. Right from the moment you get her, she is doing great things. In Normal or Hard she's going to keep doing great things for your entire run. She is so fast and so versatile that you can not only rely on her but build her in a variety of interesting ways. Maddening drags Chloe down somewhat but I really like the points that Aria Belacqua and lenticular made above so I would like to echo them. Among your early game units, you have a number of them that are serviceable and can easily turn out great with favoritism. Chloe is already great and a little bit of favoritism will see her remain great and useful for the rest of the game. The return you get for investing an early seal, an Energy Drop, or some forges is phenomenal. Engage does a wonderful job of showering you with new, immediately usable units for the whole game and Chloe can stand the test of time even as your roster shifts with each new wave of recruits. Her main issue ends up being a lack of damage in the mid-to-late game. Chloe has a number of good ways to solve this problem. An early Energy Drop will keep her in the running for much longer than she would otherwise be. The Eirika emblem leverages her great speed. Ultimately, you want to do something with her magic stat. Barren and Aria Belacqua mention Levin Swords above and that's my preferred solution. Upgrading her to a Griffin Knight with swords instead of lances gives her a high damage magic option without suffering under the oppressive weight of the Flame Lance. Mage Knight Chloe is also fantastic and a great dark horse option if you are willing to part with her status as a flying unit. I can't bring myself to do that but it is probably her best build for raw power and scaling into the lategame. Maddening Rating: 8/10 In a game with an ever-shifting roster, Chloe is a pillar of stability. She takes very little investment to fly alongside you from the moment you meet her to the credits on any difficulty. She is fun to experiment with and you can do some really funny meme builds with her on lower difficulties with classes like Martial Master.

I like Alcryst and he's a great unit on Normal or Hard mode. He has one job -- kill fliers in one round -- and he does that job very well. For situations in which you need an archer, Alcryst has got your back. His growths are serviceable and he's got some really great story content and supports. The problems creep in once you go up to Maddening. Early on Alcryst can do the job well enough to justify his slot. As the chapters begin to pass that changes. He starts having more trouble killing fliers let alone non-fliers. He can make up for his stat issue by using a radiant bow as soon as you can get your hands on one. You can get pretty far with Alcryst and an upgraded radiant bow but pretty far doesn't cut it sadly. Lategame fliers end up being too bulky for him to kill in one round whether he's holding a forged radiant bow or a forged silver bow. He ends up missing the damage targets he needs to hit by anywhere from 5 to 14 points. At the same time you have Fogado who is better with the radiant bow as well as half a dozen units who can all turn into warriors to arguably do Alcryst's job better than he can. The end result is that he requires significant investment to work. Since he's missing Maddening damage thresholds by more than a cooking bonus or tonic, he needs stat boosters, forges, engravings, and emblems to make up for his shortcomings. You can give him those things and keep him in the game up to a point but those are competitive resources that other units could be using. Any resources you're giving to Alcryst to keep him competitive could be going to Cupido Fogado, Warrior Fogado, or Warrior Merrin giving you better outcomes at less cost. There is something to be said for gluing Lyn to Alcryst and using him as an Astral Storm bot. I personally think if you want to abuse Astral Storm then making Etie your project for the run is a better way to go about it. She has better stats for this specific use and Lyn solves some of her problems making it a good fit. Alcryst can do it but the return isn't as good and Lyn has a lot of competition in the first place. Maddening Rating: 5/10 In the end, you'll probably use Alcryst at some point. Without DLC or favoritism, Etie is walking into the bridge map a level or two lower than Alcryst meaning he likely becomes your archer of choice until warriors appear in your army, Fogado joins, or warriors named Fogado appear in your army. Alcryst will do the job you need him to do for 4-5 chapters then you can let him take a break. Let's face it, after the events of chapters 8 through 11, he deserves some rest... and probably therapy.

Well, it's not really an alt if my username is identical? I just found the old registration note in my email (5/25/09). Guess it's been a while... Nice to be back. ^_^

So... I could have sworn I registered for this forum a long time ago with this username and this avatar and even made a few threads/posts. What happened? o.o; Oh, and hihi! ^_^