CappnRob

While yes the fact you don't HAVE to use it is true, the fact reclass exists at all is a smear against the nature of the series IMO. Plus, people who do use it are, for lack of a more graceful phrase, "playing the game wrong". I'm sorry, but they are. Same with Casual/Phoenix Mode too, tbh. Making games easier or more approachable for newer players is fine, but when these crutch mechanics undermine the spirit of the game itself, something is wrong. You wouldn't play a shooter game that gave you unlimited ammo as a crutch, would you? Or a racing game that autopiloted you? Why have these mechanics that undermine the purpose of the game?

Like I said, I liked Sacred Stones' branching promotions for the most part. Ross as a berserker or as a warrior is still an axe swinging axeguy after all.

I'm rather amused at how across the board opinions on Azel are. He's far less unanimous than the Chalphy Knights or even Lex, heh. It seems to boil down to if people think his merit as a promoted unit outweighs the struggle to train him - though being a good dad does seem to be giving him some points too lol.

I had no idea at the time! It was pretty great having a super magic brick wall... for all of one chapter :Y

In my opinion Fire Emblem isn't SUPPOSED to be flexible. It's supposed to make you work with what you have. What's the point of working hard to keep your healers safe if you can just transform one of your tanky characters into a healer? You have a finite amount of characters who serve distinct, pre-determined roles, and its using those characters effectively and efficiently that forms the core of success in Fire Emblem.

Azel is a bro. A gimpy bro, mind, but a bro. Pursuit is what saves him tbh. He can one-round-nuke almost any enemy in the prologue and if his magic keeps up (which it should due to minor Vala) he'll be doing the same for chapter 1 as well. Fire magic is stupidly heavy sadly but this moreso effects his ability to DODGE early game than his ability to double - provided his speed is higher than his enemy's, he'll still double, even if his speed - weight ends up being zero, because zero is still higher than the -13 speed most of the Verdane axemans have. However that lack of dodge does make him a pain to babysit against said axemans, because they can and will easily 2-shot the poor guy. Once chapter 2 rolls around, where enemies start using cavalry as a mainstay, Azel falls behind a bit - he simply can't keep up. However, once he promotes he does overcome that hurdle with his own horse. He's still delicate, but promotion gains give him a solid edge and the ability to move far and remove after attack make hit and runs much more viable for him - provided he can hit promotion early enough to get use out of it anyway. As a father, Azel is damn good. He's a mainstay for Tiltyu, the two of them combining their magic strengths to produce kids that are great at both (and when they promote can access both A rank fire AND lightning magic). He's a popular choice for Lachesis as well, really giving Nana some much needed buffing as a healer and making Delmud probably the most effecient magic sword user in the game. The fact both Tiltyu and Lachesis lack pursuit and Azel has it means either kids become multi-hit powerhouses with the right gear. All in all, Azel gets a 7/10 for me. His weakest point is the mid-game where his flaws overshadow his early game strengths, but when he picks back up he's fantastic, and is a great father character. I just wish his estranged relationship with Alvis was explored more thoroughly in game, but lore beefs are a thing I have against FE4 in general so pft.

Like I said, I haven't played any FE since 9 because I don't have the needed hardware (poorlife yo), I just assumed Radiant Dawn would have the same skills as PoR. Apparently not, though!

Hmmm. That would actually put Dierdre to use, funny enough. Though I always brought her out as a support healer - double funny enough, I also leveled her up with Return spam. I think I even got her to 20 once, only to be annoyed she couldn't promote.

But I love using my whole army, I'd feel bad if I screwed Lester or Patty over, lol. Either way it seems Holyn is the way to go with Briggid, lack of story or no. I might experiment with Jamke and Aidean, but the lack of pursuit does put me a bit off.

Well there is also the Brave Bow. I typically drop the pursuit ring on Ethlin so Leif can inherit it, and then once Leify boy hits Master Knight, give it to Johan/Johalva. Midayle and Jamka both got good story with Aidean, so its a matter of does she want the loyal nice guy or the rugged bad boy, hue. Also I had no idea using a magic sword's ranged attack would trigger steal. Though I can't say I'm surprised, hurr hurr. I should really pay magic swords more attention.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to 1: keep Lachesis' three goons alive throughout Chapter 2 while also 2: not just holding her back and thus depriving her of EXP and keeping her weak while also 3: pairing her with Finn? Finn being mounted while Lachesis is infantry already blows, but having to hold Lachesis back means holding Finn back too and that's a real pain in the ass if I want Finn to be viable for G2 (I try to get him to Duke Knight before the end of Chapter 3 though as long as he's reasonably leveled I don't mind if he isn't). So yeah, any pro MLG FE strats for combining these three issues? Is the Knight Ring even worth busting my nuts over?

Yo, so I'm doing another run of FE4, and I figured I'd fish for some opinions on who to pair the Jungby sisters with. Here's my breakdown... Dad #1: Midayle Midayle gets a bad rap for being kind of bad.... and yeah, he kind of is. But he makes a good dad, boasting the all coveted Pursuit skill. Duel is nice too, for a bow user. Aidean and Briggid's Ullur blood both kind of cover for Midayle's weaknesses either way. With Aidean, Midayle provides a direct parental contribution to Lester, also being a bow knight. He can pass down the hero's and killer bow, and if I manage to promote Midayle, a silver one too which he can use out the gate due to Ullur blood. Also, their love story is a cute. With Briggid, things are a bit iffier. Midayle passes things onto Patty, so his archeryness is wasted because Briggid is also an archer. He can't pass any weapons down, but pursuit really makes Patty useful in fights and she can fight in arenas a little easier (especially since she can't use B rank swords). Dad #2: Jamke Jamke is an interesting case. Another bowdude like Midayle, he is way way WAY more competent than his horse riding rival for love in terms of raw stat growth. Except his skill. That sucks for some reason. With Aidean, Lester (and Lana) miss out on Pursuit, because for bow fighters that skill is built into their class, because reasons. However he can pass down the brave and killer bow which both may well make up for that. With Briggid, Jamke's bow using skills are again wasted. He offers little to Patty besides solid growths, but Continue and Duel are hella good skills for both her and Faval, though they might be a tad overkill on Faval who is already packing the Ichival Bow. Dad #3: Holyn I only pair Holyn with Briggid and honestly the results speak for themselves: it makes Patty into a MACHINE. Odo blood makes up for Faval's mediocre skill growth, and B rank swords means Patty can whip out the brave sword, and the Luna skill is a nice additional thing if a bit superfluous in the long run. Holyn's big drawback imo is the fact he isn't a destined pair with Briggid so there's basically no lore or story for them and that annoys me. Dad #4: Dew Again, Briggid only. Dew being a thief is a perfect analogue for Patty, and the bargain skill helps Faval maintain the use of the Ichival for long periods of time without going bankrupt. Dew also has fantastcally rounded stat growths that help both kids, and is a destined pairing to boot, but Patty won't get any fighting skills on the side. Bargain might can help her afford the elite ring though, however. So yeah, what do you all suggest? I typically go Midayle/Aidean and Holyn/Briggid but I'd like to see some opinions outside my comfort zone.

FE3: Expedition and Holy War FE4: Literally all of G1. I seriously can't pick. I also love Light Inheritor The Final Holy War for both being kind of different takes on Birth of a Holy Knight as well. Though let's be real, FE4's just got hella good map themes period.

Yes, I like this thread! Obligatory Sigurd rating: 1000000/10 (or just 10/10 if you don't like my cheeky humor. Can solo G1 on his own, is basically his own Jeigan because of that. Unstoppable silver sword swinging machine). Noish: 5/10. Not AWFUL but certainly not the best, his skills are good for parentage but he gets little use out of them. However his stats aren't terrible and he hits pretty hard especially early on, is good for softening guys up for setting up kills. An asset character, not a frontliner. Alec: 6/10. Slightly better than Noish due to being able to double, not being THAT much weaker over all (his biggest weakness in the Prologue is having a FUCKING IRON SWORD), Nihil is fantastic in niche situations, and he actually has a personality. Not great, but he gets the job done. Another fine asset character. Arden: 5/10. I actually don't HATE Arden at all - he's limited to be sure, but he has HELLA good use especially in the early game when all you're fighting are big dumb axe guys who do too much goddamn damage with one hit and the RNG is hating you because a 36% hit rate with a single RN is honestly not the best odds in your favor. Arden exists for facetanking the Verdane hordes, and he facetanks them like a fuckin' pro. His iron sword blows, sure, but he's not about scoring kills: he's about taking hits and softening shirtless yokels up for guys like Midayle and Azel to finish them off. He's about getting literally surrounded by steel axe wielding bastards and laughing as their massive 20+ damage does 2-6 damage tops to his massive mound of HP while everyone else is taking 10-15+. Now, don't get me wrong, Arden is still BAD in the long run. He's hard to actually promote without boss abusing Gondolf (which I always do because lol), and Chapter 2 and beyond really leave his ass behind in the dust because that's when you start fighting hordes of mounted units instead of just dumb barbarian men with movement Arden can actually keep up with, but in the early game he is an invaluable asset when your characters aren't strong enough to take more than a few axe hits to the face without crumpling over in a bloody heap. Look at this glorious ugly bastard from my current run. He's gotten to level 6 as of killing Kinbois (haven't even recruited Ayra yet) just by facetanking like a champ and doing surprisngly well in the Arena (he made it to Emille!). Sure his usefulness is nearing its end, but its saved my ass a lot. Also the pursuit ring is really fucking important in G1 for so many characters and you need Arden to get it so that's a thing too. Lex: Now LEX is where things start getting GOOD. Elite means he levels up from basically doing nothing. Sure you can give him kills for easy levels, but the dude gets 30-40+ sometimes just by HITTING people. Early game he can't double due to no hero's axe, but he does a LOT of damage and being mounted means he's quite good at softening enemies up for your weaker characters. He isn't as tanky as Arden is out the gate (he only starts with a bleh 9 defense), but that Neir Blood really kicks it into overdrive once he starts leveling up. The Hero's Axe is fantastic because it not only lets Lex double, but its got a surprisingly managable weight of only 12 (vs the obscene 18 normal axes have), and to top it all off, Lex is a great dad for a lot of interesting playstyles because Neir blood means being tough, elite means easy leveling, and ambush works like a godsend with wrath for the infamous Lex/Tiltyu combo. I personally always pair him with Ayra because swordgirl-axedude pairs are best pairs (and their holy bloods compliment each other, leaving only luck as Lachke and Skasaher's weaknesses), but Lex works well with a lot of other girls. 8/10 character, hella useful from the gate to the grave.

Toot toot, old time fan here who hasn't been able to play any of your new fangled Fire Emblems because games were better when we didn't have fun with them. Jokes aside though, while I haven't been able to play any FE past Path of Radiance and therefore can't really comment on too many MECHANICAL changes the series has gone through, I've stayed in touch at least with FE's development over the years and there are things that.... don't please me, at all. 1: AVATAR characters. I don't strictly dislike these on principle, however I feel that they have been handled completely irresponsibly in the games they've been featured in. I rather liked The Tactician in Blazing Sword, because he was something of an outside entity that functioned as a player surrogate for experiencing the story. Main characters "talked" to you, but the Tactician's "character" was wholly expressed through you playing the game - he didn't have any dialogue, he didn't have any pre-set character traits that detract from the "player character" experience. That's my beef with characters like Corrin - they are, functionally, for all intents and purposes, a MOSTLY pre-written character. So what's the point is being able to customize them and make them your own, when you truly can't? I really dislike this trend in RPGs where you have your feet in two ponds - you are neither a total blank slate to work with, nor are you a pre-determined character that you simply guide the choices of. Pick one or the other, don't mingle in both. If future games are to include avatars, I would want them to be more like the Tactician - a silent, passive role in the story whose actions are defined by PLAYING THE GAME. And don't even get me started on Kris, who apparently caused retcons in Mystery of the Emblem's story to accommodate them? Either way, Fire Emblem, imo, is not YOUR story - its stories about lords and commoners, kingdoms rising and falling and the people caught up in between. Keep player insert power fantasy heroics out of it. 1.2: An addendum to above because it counts as much as its own thing as it does part of the Avatar Problem: DATING SIMULATOR SYNDROME. When characters could pair up and have kids in FE4, it mattered because those kids had to carry on the legacy of their fallen/defeated parents. There was weight to them existing mechanically and narratively, and the whole game was BUILT around that. Now I love supports in Fire Emblem (Blazing Sword is my favorite in the series just for how well written the Supports are), and I love me some shipping in Fire Emblem too (one of the few things I actually care about it in), but Awakening and Fates seem to have just degraded this into "muh waifu" nonsense. I suppose part of this is more of a change in the culture of the FANDOM than the games themself, but it does feel like the weight and importance of forming bonds between characters has been diluted in favor of fanservice, especially because the Avatar characters can literally ship with literally anyone it seems. Again, its player insert fantasy, something I feel is absolutely out of place in Fire Emblem. 2: RECLASSING. Now I like some ideas behind reclassing, namely I liked the branching promotions that Sacred Stones offered.... for the most part. But the recent trend of being able to change anyone into anything and repeatedly promote them over and over just.... feels absolutely un-Fire Emblem to me. Now yes, I don't know the specifics of how this works mechanically - I am sure there is some means of preventing abuse - but the IDEA is still wrong, to me. Characters are a certain class for a reason. Oswin is an armor knight because he's a stalwart vassal of his noble house and has a tough, stern, stubborn disposition. Classes are both an important part of forming your strategy and a reflection on the character's... well, character. Oswin would never ditch the heavy armor so he could run around shirtless and hit people with swords. 3: SPECIAL SKILL CREEP. Now I LOVE the skills system as a concept, however I think its become REALLY bloated over recent years. In Genealogy of the Holy War, while yes some skills were stupidly balanced (hellloooo tying double attacks to pursuit, helllooooo the OPness that is Moonlight/Meteor Sword), they worked as a concept because skills were generally small things that helped diversify characters and make them special. Only a handful of people had Nihil, or Continue/Adept, or Wrath, etc. The Tellius games I think brought in the just right amount of new skills: provoke was really good, as was its counterpart, Shade. But all the stuff in Awakening? The skill bloat is REAL: almost EVERYONE has skills now, and a LOT of them, and theres SO many weird niche ones like "do EVEN BETTER with axes" or "fight EVEN BETTER indoors" that just dilute the tactical appreciation I have for skills. They're less special nuances to how a character functions and now are just straight up means of stacking power creep to make everyone a super badass. And yes, FE4 G2 did have that in theory as well: a large part of the pairing meta is getting kids with great skill combinations, but at least there the pool of skills was still rather small, AND concise. Plus, the G2 half of the game really amps up the difficulty to make having all these skill combinations interesting and useful. 4: This is my big one, personally. PRESENTATION. You know what I miss in Fire Emblem? The old artwork, specifically the Elibe-Magvel-Tellius stuff. (I guess the DS remakes of FE1/3 fall into here as well). While anime influences have always been apparent (one need not look farther than the og Lord himself, Marth, to see that coif of blue on his head), it has always been generally subdued. Fire Emblem has a very strong western influence: its medieval European influences are as plain as day (or Roman Empire ones if you're talking Akaneia Saga hue). No, it was never SUPER REALISTIC, and you had plenty of unarmored swordguys being awesome at fighting with their long badass swordsman hair, but there was a balance. People never looked "anime cool", like a Final Fantasy character. Fire Emblem, while not often very realistic, FELT realistic. It was about armies of men coming at each other, fighting over differences in culture and values. Sure there was almost always an evil demon god/dragon/wizard/combination of those therein that was pulling the strings behind the scenes you'd ultimately go fight, but they didn't dominate the scene even when their influences were most blatant. When Hadrian was blatantly possessed by the goddamn devil with his red glowing eyes and spiky red armor, there was still an element of humanity at play here because Hadrian was still Marth's old comrade and friend, because the men he was throwing at Marth were still just loyal soldiers to their cause and it was you or them. That vibe has been lost in Fire Emblem, I feel. Now yes, I know Awakening was a big huge kind of tongue in cheek game that was never meant to be taken too seriously, and yes I know some of the designs in Fates are actually quite good - but there's still shit like Camilla. Camilla and her goddamn jiggle armor. Camilla and her goddamn BATTLE THONG. Camilla and her goddamn coronet that looks like cat ears. The otaku/weeaboo/whatever you want to call it pandering, the fanservice, in modern Fire Emblem, is undeniable. Characters feel less like characters, more like fetishized exaggerations of characters. The art is just not as good - not for lack of detail, on a technical level, Fates and Awakening's art is rather nicely drawn - but on an EMOTIONAL level. There's a lot of bland moe sameface going on. Everyone's "cute". Few characters stand out. Compare to FE6/7/8/9/10's characters: they don't evoke popular design trends of their times. They're daresay timeless. Fates and Awakening however, are doomed to be "extremely mid-late 2010s" in design. Ok yeah, sure, the super old FEs had some dated designs too (Everyone in FE4 has a serious case of 90s shojo prettyface going on, and to say nothing about Deen and his supermullet from Gaiden), but at least those designs remained sensible to the setting: Cuan and Sigurd dressed like poncey ass pimps with capes because they were noblility having to look their best. Ardan wore full armor because he's a simple common knight. Ayra wore exotic robes and light armor because she's from Judgral's local not-Asia, Issach. Maybe I'm dragging this out a bit. Maybe I didn't express or word my complaints about the art and presentation as clearly as I'd liked. But it is what it is, and I dearly miss that most low-key, sensible character art design from the mid-2000s games very much. Wew, that was a lot to say.

What gets me is how FE6 seems to imply the men's mercenary forces are inferior to the women's - I can dig the pegasus thing personally (though back in the day I once had a special snowflake male pegasus knight OC, hue), but Barigan founded Ilia, Barigan founded the merc guilds, and Barigan... was a dude. So, lolwat there. Anyway, as others have said, Ilia may heavily rely on mercs for its economy but that's not all it would have - it has farms (fickle as they can be), it has a coastline so fishing is likely a big deal, it has mountains so mining supports it in some capacity, if just to sustain itself. The comparisons to medieval switzerland and its mercenaries is quite apt honestly.

A lot of what was introduced in Thracia later became standards for the series, just fine tuned to be less hardball on the player (ie fog of war). TBH if we just brought these old mechanics up to modern standards Thracia would still be a challenging but far more tolerable game. I haven't played this thing in bloody ages (only once, and way back when at that), so I can't recall anything too specific that hasn't already been said already lol.

The top admins eh? Who would they be? I think I vaguely remember Lord Raven.... maybe. Sort of. Eh. Either way, thanks for the welcome :)

TBH I always found Alec as a usable just not fantastic support unit. Give him a steel sword and he does perfectly fine what with it being a straight upgrade from iron (and with Sigurd packing silver, what else are you going to use his old steel sword for?). Alec can double hit and is immune to crits and specials, and is balanced enough in his stats to level up without any special babysitting. Paladin is a lame promotion though, B rank lances are barfaroni in a game where all weapons weigh the same regardless of rank. Alec also has some of the funnier saucier lines in the game, too bad he doesn't actually talk that much. God I'd love for a FE4 remake that gave us more engaging character dialogue. Or supports.

Man I came in here to fight people who would be crapping on Eldigan but instead I got some seriously good/cool analytical looks at the motivations and possible machinations of some Judgral characters. Neat. Especially loved that bit on Bloom. My only objection though.... Um excuse me but I am pretty sure soloing the prologue is more than easily doable with just Sigurd, the unbalanced OP superlord he is :P

Hah, I did the same thing a long time ago, mashing the FE4 maps together. Yours seems to be a little cleaner than mine, though (I did mine in MSPaint!). Also that video is awesome, especially the part that puts the events of FE4's chapter 7 and 8 into the perspective of FE5's narrative. Nice!

Considering if you use exploits to let Cuan and Ethlin survive Trabant and company and they take that one castle in the desert and nothing actually comes of it except soft locking your game, I would think Alvis getting rekt'd in the prologue or Velthomer somehow being taken by the enemy would do the same. In the case of Velthomer, it would also soft lock your game as you can't talk to Aida, lol.

Technically been playing since 2003, I got the North American Blazing Sword for Christmas along with a shiny new GBA SP, but I didn't seek out FESS until later the following year :P And yeah I'm dedicated to the things I love! I almost never drop a series I love (almost. its happened before). And pssssh, Phoenix Mode. Get out there and play MANLY EMBLEM, the way it was meant to be played! You'll love yourself better for it.

Hey. Yo. So. You can call me Cappn. or Rob. Either or works. Long time ago, I was on the FESS (Fire Emblem Sanctuary of Strategy) forums, back from 2004 until they closed down in what.... 2008? 09? I can't even remember. Anyway, I was known as Mullen there, some of you might passingly vaguely remember me, dunno how many of them are here, but... hey! Anyway I sort of fell off the Fire Emblem fandom after FESS went down. Was hard to move on, and the lack of Wii and DS in my life meant I was getting behind on the games (last game I owned, and still own, is Path of Radiance. I have a Wii now, but Radiant Dawn is effin' hard to find now, bleh!). Never stopped loving the series though, still replay the series semi-often... and, I dunno. Guess I figured I'd try and fit back into the fandom, heh. I'm largely an FE3/4/6/7 guy, but I've played FE1 (the Famicom version. Regrets were had), FE5 (never again. is there still not complete patch for it out there? Someone fill me in), FE8 and FE9. Gaiden I've somehow overlooked, I should rectify that some day. Anyway, I'm here to reintegrate and maybe make some new friends, and maybe maybe meet some old ones. Hi sup.