Radiant Dragon

Other users would probably know better for Question 1 (I paired him with Oboro, personally, but not for eugenics). As for Master Seals however, ranking up the Rod Shop allows you to buy more of them, and you can buy an infinite number of them at Rank 3. Also, enemies should start dropping them soon in the upcoming maps.

The great thing about Path of Radiance (and Radiant Dawn to a lesser extent) is that literally any unit can become good thanks to the BEXP mechanic. I'm pretty sure I've used everyone in that game on at least one playthrough. However, Rolf is considered worse than other units because he requires more EXP to become good due to his low base stats, and he will still have to deal with the natural limitations of the Sniper class regardless. The EXP used on Rolf could have been used on, say, one of the potential Paladins, and you would end up with a superior unit just because Paladins are that good and Snipers are that bad in Path of Radiance. As for Takumi, I love how the new Attack Stance mechanics let me use him to help get 2-3 kills per player phase with his high attack, 2-range and good critical chance (I made him a Sniper). Definitely my favorite Archer in the series, although I concede I haven't played the DS games more than once. He's certainly better than Jamke and/or Faval just because the mechanics in Fates are much kinder to Archers than Geneology's are. To be fair, Rolf is much better than either of those two will ever be.

You seem to be talking about Path of Radiance (everyone here already knows Astrid is like, the fourth worst character in Radiant Dawn), so here are Rolf's and Astrid's average stats at 20/1: Rolf: HP - 32, Def - 13, Res - 8 Astrid: HP - 33, Def - 13, Res - 10 Then you remember that Astrid has access to the Knight Ward (she comes with it, even!) for +2 Def/Res, +2 move for better positioning flexibility on the enemy phase, as well as her choice of Swords/Axes/Lance to help leverage the weapon triangle in her favor. Not to mention she also has Paragon, so she'll be leveling up much faster than Rolf and therefore increase her durability lead over him even more. As for Rolf vs. Shinon in Radiant Dawn, you have to realize that Rolf will not possibly outclass Shinon until the very end of the game once your units start reaching max level, because due to the massive level difference by the time Rolf 'catches up' to Shinon, Shinon could have used that EXP to get even farther ahead of Rolf. Yeah, he gets less EXP due to being a higher level, but Rolf is twelve levels in the hole here - he's too far behind to catch up, especially since Shinon has an easier time getting that EXP because he does more damage and doubles basically everything when he joins (Rolf on the other hand, doubles nothing at all). In addition, Shinon can use BEXP to reliably increase his Strength once he starts capping his other stats, so Rolf's only advantage over him just disappears.

Oh right, that chapter. I forgot about that because I didn't rout it. I paired Hinoka and Corrin and just flew to the Escape point. Got the treasure chest right beforehand thanks to Reina (unless this was before she joined, in which case it was Subaki). Can't you just go the (really) long way around if you have to, though? You have to fight your way through Garon and Xander if you do that, true, but isn't it theoretically possible?

1. Yes. 2. Yeah, that's correct. 3. I haven't gotten a Brave weapon yet, so I can't help you there, but if the lead unit doubles the support unit will still only attack once. 4. Blue is raised, red is lowered.

What chapter was this, if you remember? I don't recall there being one where you had to use a flier with Dragon's Vein to beat it (well, there's Chapter 18 but that's Kill Boss thankfully, because fuck that chapter). Even so, you can always pair Corrin with a flying unit and switch to use the ability. Not that I'm suggesting you shouldn't use Hinoka, mind you. She's pretty great, even without an OP personal weapon.

Sacred Stones gives you the ability to grind your team between story battles, as well as having a decent postgame dungeon. Fire Emblem has a more compelling campaign, a wider cast of characters, and greater replayability. Both games have two separate modes for the main campaign (although Fire Emblem doesn't give you a choice which to choose for your first playthrough), so it's worth it to play both twice for the full story regardless. Fire Emblem also has a 10-chapter tutorial that's mandatory on your first playthrough (on your second run, you can turn the tutorial off or opt to skip it completely). It's also worth noting that of the two, Sacred Stones is the newer title, and as such has some added features, but mechanically they use the same engine and are pretty similar. If you like to complete everything and have a 'perfect' file, Sacred Stones may be more up your alley. If you like playing through multiple times to try out new things, or if you plan on getting both eventually anyway, I'd recommend going with Fire Emblem first.

I tried to make Orochi work once I realized my team was a bit soft against Generals, but she ended up falling behind so I just Sealed Felicia to Strategist and used Izana instead. I'd say that training one of them could be worth it if you find yourself needing/wanting magic users early on, but I wouldn't recommend them based on my experiences so far.

I've promoted most of my units at either 17 or 18 (playing Birthright Hard), around ch.14-15. Promoted Kagero at 16 a couple chapters later after she got some nice levels and I realized that having a Shuriken user with high strength was pretty useful. I ended up dropping her for Yukimura though, since he outclassed her everywhere except for one point of Strength.

Silas seems to be a good option if you want a mount and/or a tank, since Birthright seems to be somewhat short on options for those early on (at least until you get Scarlet, who's also amazing). He's performed really well for me, at least.

Kana may be a unique case since I'm fairly sure the Kana in chapter and the one you recruit afterward are treated as separate units. Unfortunately, she's the only child character I've recruited so far so I don't know if this is true for any of the others.

One must wonder if the Hubba Tester was ever meant to be useful, like the Fortune Shop in FE4. While tying marriage to supports seems like the obvious solution to us, having played the finished product, but I wonder if IS had had other ideas on how to implement marriage/children in Awakening, and if so, what they were?

I leave them on in every game except FE9, FE11 and FE12, since the animations are so boring in those games they're almost not worth watching.

True. Imagine FE9 for example; Rolf would be even more useless than he already is if Shinon didn't leave for half the game.

Yeah, enemies might be slightly stronger in FE6 but you still have units like Alance, Dieck, Miledy, Percival etc. who can still use Hand Axes and/or Javelins to ORKO all of the unpromoted mooks that FE6 throws at you, even in the game's final chapters. On the other hand, unpromoted enemies disappear completely as soon as Chapter 17 in Awakening. Still, due to lower accuracy across the board, being lousy with Wyvern Riders and having actual competent bow-users, Bows are a bit better in FE6 than FE7 or 8. That's hardly an accomplishment.

I've noticed that Bow users tend to get more useful the stronger the enemies are in comparison to your units. When the enemies are weak enough that you can put a Hero on a fort with a couple Hand Axes and have him murder everything on the enemy phase, there's not much point to using Archers/Snipers to pick off those enemies one by one. However, if the enemies are strong enough to not be ORKO'd by Hand Axe/Javelin assaults, then Bows become much more useful to both soften up dangerous enemies at range and avoid damaging counterattacks. This is probably why you noticed Bows becoming more useful when moving up in difficulty. In the GBA games (where enemies sucked), or the Tellius games (where forged Hand Axes were almost as strong as Tomahawks), Archers/Snipers just can't compare to other units being able to kill everything on the enemy phase with ranged weaponry. Honestly, Shinon is probably one of the most overrated units in Radiant Dawn for this reason; after the first half of Part 3, the rest of your units are able to generally ORKO on their own and the maps become more focused around routing enemies in wide-open areas. In more recent installments however, the enemies become so dangerous on higher difficulties that the advantages that Bows have over other ranged weapons become much more useful. Still, having Archers that join you with good base stats would be very welcome. Also, what do people think of Snipers getting Galeforce instead? I feel that it would make sense given they're mostly regulated to player-phase combat, so doubling up on that would help give them a boost in usefulness.

Do we know which playmat(s) they'll be offering?

Kurthnaga saved me a turn in a draft once. That's been the extent of his usefulness in my playthroughs, though. I don't think I've ever drafted Ena in RD, now that I think about it. It's not that they're unsalvagable per se, since you have all the resources in the world to throw at them at this point and they're free anyway, but the amount of effort it takes always ends up seeming exorbitant (even though I can justify training Sanaki almost every playthrough...).

If I remember correctly, most if not all skirmishes in both games drop at least one weapon and some gold (Sacred Stones might have been a bit stingy with the gold), so running out would be very difficult.

Level ups in Fire Emblem are not quite that random. For each unit, each individual stat has it's own chance of increasing at level up or not, each stat is not weighted equally. For example, in Path of Radiance, Gatrie (a heavily armored character focusing on dealing and tanking lots of damage) has a 80% chance to gain a point of HP on a level up, a 55% chance to gain a point of Strength, and a 60% chance to get a point of Defence - these are all calculated individually, so he can get all or none or anything in between on any given level-up. Meanwhile, he only has a 5% chance to get a point of Magic and a 30% chance to get a point of Resistance (aka magic defense). It's the same for most characters in each game, they have a higher chance of getting points in the stats they specialize in while having lower chances to get points in the stats they don't need or use. I'd say that all of the games are about equally fair in this regard, although Radiant Dawn has quite a few units who have growth spreads that make no sense (Meg and Vika are probably the best examples of this). In the three games for the GBA (Binding Blade, Sacred Stones and Blazing Sword/"Fire Emblem"), if a unit would gain no stats at all on a level up, the game re-rolls the level up (up to three times total) to help prevent you from getting screwed. Path of Radiance has Fixed Mode, which takes the randomness out of leveling up, but can only be played after the game has been beaten once. Radiant Dawn flat out prevents you from getting a level up with no stats; it will re-roll until you get something. In addition, levels gained through Bonus EXP in Radiant Dawn will always reward three stats, no more and no less, weighted towards stats with a higher chance of increasing naturally (really useful once a character has capped a couple of those higher stats). In Shadow Dragon, Awakening (and soon Fates), you can reclass characters to give them better chances to gain certain stats - being a Knight will give a character a higher chance to get Strength or Defense on a level up than being a Mage, for example. Also, characters in more recent titles like Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening and Fates generally have better growth rates than characters in earlier titles, although enemies in later titles tend to have higher stats on average than enemies in earlier titles as well.

If story is a concern to you: Blazing Sword (also known as just 'Fire Emblem') is a prequel to Binding Blade, but since they're 20 years apart you don't have to play one before the other to understand what's going on. You'll miss some minor references to Binding Blade if you play Blazing Sword first, but it's not a big deal. Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to Path of Radiance, taking place three years later. I would highly recommend playing Path of Radiance before Radiant Dawn, as it may become difficult to follow near the end of the game, when everything that happened across the two games starts coming together. Thracia 776 is an 'interquel' to Geneology of the Holy War, taking place sometime between chapters 6 and 7 of that game. I would recommend playing Geneology first, but do note you'll have to emulate both of them (along with Binding Blade) to play them in English. New Mystery of the Emblem is a direct sequel to Shadow Dragon (both of which are remakes of Marth's original games), so it'll probably be best to play Shadow Dragon first, although again you'll have to emulate New Mystery to play it in English. Gaiden is relatively self-contained, taking place in the same world as Marth's games but on a different continent. Sacred Stones is completely self-contained, it has no story connections to any other game at all. Personally, I would recommend playing any of the GBA or DS games first, since they boil the game mechanics down to their most basic form, making it easier to move to the other games which pile more on top of that. I found the DS games to be extremely dull myself, but mechanically they are pretty solid. You can't go too wrong with just starting with whatever you have available to you, though.

This is an often understated part of the difficulty of the series, however. I don't mean to boil your entire point into just one sentence here, but moreso than any other game (even any other strategy game) I've played, understanding Fire Emblem's mechanics, the math involved, exactly what each stat affects and by how much, etc. is extremely crucial. You don't have fancy abilities to fall back on like other SRPGs, it's pure numbers here. In addition, combat is extremely unforgiving because if the AI can gang up on and kill someone they will, forcing you to restart or go on without them. Most FE games are also rather unforgiving to those trying to grind, which is also a departure compared to most other SRPGs. I'll use Final Fantasy Tactics Advance as a comparison here (which is a really easy game); I've played that game to death and yet I still have no idea how each of my unit's stats affects exactly how much damage they can deal or take, and the game is designed such that I don't really need to. Yeah, I could always look up the formulas if I needed to, but it's not exactly the kind of math you can do in your head. The AI is content with spreading it's damage around instead of gunning for your weakest units, and it's easy to see when you can get some EXP for the units you're trying to train (random battles/easy side missions) and when you need to bring in your A-Team (story missions, especially Totema). Don't even get me started on cheap abilities like Last Breath (basically Lethality but with a good chance to hit), Smile (basically being able to dance someone four squares away), Ultima (ridiculous amounts of damage), etc. The game doesn't really punish you for making mistakes, either. If you've played other SRPGs like FFT, Tactics Ogre or what have you, how often do you find yourself needing to restart a battle? How often do you have to restart in Fire Emblem? FE's easier modes seem to be designed such to allow the player to overpower the enemy with sheer stats rather than forcing the player to take advantage of all the different tools they're given, which brings it closer in difficulty to other SRPGs (the simplified combat window in Awakening would seem to support this theory as well).

What exactly is everything that comes in the Players Box sets? Looks like a deck box, divider, two sets of sleeves, promo card, four pieces of art (plastic, I'm assuming?) and a carrying case, maybe? Is that correct?

That's what I remembered, but I wasn't sure and just wanted to confirm that it wasn't accidentally omitted or something.