Eltosian Kadath

You don't leave them in range of combats they can't survive (assuming they have the move to do so), or use the movement of your other units to create a formation that allows them to survive. You have control over what your units do on the map, and higher move gives you more options. You don't have to attack an enemy you wont survive... but if you decide to do so anyway, you can use an attack range the enemy doesn't have to avoid the counter, or use the movement of units that can survive combat with the target to chip the target so you can one shot (and thus don't take the counter you can't survive), or you use your movement to attack from more favorable terrain to get a favorable advantage (whether that is enough defense to swing your survival, or just have a higher dodge rate to increase your chance of survival as high as you can). Or most obvious of all you don't attack in that situation, and instead use your movement to keep them from targeting this unit on enemy phase as well, and start getting your units into a position where you can deal with this enemy, or bait him in a way that you can ignore him. And one of the more critical stats to whether or not you can do that is move... High move Galeforce boss kill starts are a big part of FE:A Lunatic/Lunatic+. Nosferatu, the exp formula, and pairup all being kinda broken are also a big part of it, but FE:A lunatic/lunatic+ alone doesn't make a strong argument for move being a bad stat, seeing how useful it is. Are people regularly reclassing high move units into classes with lower move but better stats? I always remember reclassing to DracoKnight being a big thing in that game... A big part of that early game difficulty is you are stuck with only 4 Move beginner classes for so long. The power of the stride gambit helps, but that boost doesn't last forever. Move shines a lot when you are at a stat disadvantage like that, as it lets you use the units you have to more efficiently coordinate their attacks, or attack in ways that allow for the creation of defensive formations simultaneously with your attacks. Also you might want to mention New Mystery if high enemy stats is all you are thinking about. It has a far more interesting relation to this debate, as on its higher difficulties it is one of the only games where stat caps actually matter, and there are points very late into the game where hitting key stat thresholds above the caps of higher mobility classes is a thing. How much of an impact the last 3-5 chapters are on how important a stat is for the entirety of the game is a curious question, especially when move is so very vital to the earlier ~20+ chapters in the game. Its more about your units being able to reach a place with terrain that allows your units to hide behind a single Marcus, than them being separated. Also having the move to bee able to meaningfully act after however far away they had to get to be covered by Marcus is a big part of it too. Even without Canto units can contribute with rescue, it just requires more planning. Which only helps if you only engage in combats where you attack first, which in all likelihood requires both move, and help from other units that have move. That is assuming they have high enough strength to OHKO, and if the don't hit that threshold, or can't hit anyway, then low speed, defense, and hp leads to them being killed with every attempt to attack. Doubling only helps if you can take the enemy counter, which requires the HP and defense/resistance to do so, and that isn't even getting into the point that very few games have weapons good enough to cover for terrible strength to reach that 1 rko...SD forged effective weapons and maybe forged brave weapons are some of the few I am thinking of that could pull off such a shift. FE is an SRPG, not simply an RPG, movement/positioning are also core functions to units in these games. And if you move beyond these hyperbolic examples, where units with move have other stats as well, it might help you see how Move helps with most of the main objectives too. The two most common objectives are Seize and Boss kill, both of which generally require you to move a fair distance across the map, and engage in a minimum of one combat. Having higher move lets you complete that main objective faster, and easier; sure combat is a part of completing it, but move plays a far greater role, and lets you control how much combat is required. Arrive/escape is basically the possibly combat optional version of seize (in general, Thracia's version is a little more involve, but same idea overall), where move is the biggest factor between you and your main objective. Rout and kill X number of units are the big objectives where combat takes center stage, and move takes a more ancillary role (like combat did in the other main combat types mentioned so far). Don't get me wrong, move plays a role, as it lets you control where combat occurs, and how many of your units can engage enemies, and which enemies they have the option of engaging on each given turn. Defend/survive for X turns is a bit of an odd man out objective-wise, as combat and move are both kinda optional, with defensive, and healing ability being more closely tied to completing the objective. Although using your combat to wipe out enemies, or movement to manipulate the AI (not to mention the role it plays in combat in general), can both play a major role in completing it. Also for my own entertainment, I will go through and list the maps where I think it might be possible to complete the main objectives with infinite move but all combats result in the blue unit dying, and red unit taking 0 damage. It really does make a bad unit better. There is a reason General Amelia is a joke compared to Paladin Amelia, and its the move that makes that terrible unit better. The jokes about Meg having the stat lines of a pegasus knight come to mind as well, as she is one of the worst units in that game, whereas the pegasus knights her stats are compared to are generally seen as rather good. Also this idea that having more movement gives you more chances to die instead of less is ludicrous, more move gives your unit more options, and the more options you have, the more likely one of those will result in their survival, and you only need one...

Alright @Benice, I will be starting Yakuza 0 soon, just waiting for it to download.

I get the funny feeling Awakening will get a notable boost from this change. The 5 Support level limit that the series used to have is an underappreciated feature. Honestly, I found Rev to be rather fun if you play it as a challenge run. I had a lot of fun with my PMU of it, and it was a lot of fun hearing Saint Rubenio's reports on his generics only Revelation run.

Matthew was the sole bench-warmer (and he saw plenty of use earlier in the run) everyone else that lived were deployed for the final map. Oswin, Lowen, Priscilla, Nils/Ninian, Hawkeye, Nino, Jaffar, Renault, Athos, Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector all fought in that last great battle.

I think I will pass along some small bits of advice. Don't be afraid to overuse Athos, he can clear this map if you use him carefully (and don't forget to hand him a Luna tome if you have one). Don't fight Uhai at range, stay out of his range, let him come closer, and surround him, taking advantage of him not having 1 range. If have uses of Ninis's Grace, and Filla's Might, consider using them when you need more defenses/offense. Be warned reinforcements will arrive from the bottom of the map after you open the door to Nergal.

I think you captured a bit of that somberness with this one. I really like all the characters that join in that chapter, her, Rath, and Heath, but its always so hard to fit more than one or two of them on your team at that point. Well except in the HHM no-Lyn mode ironman run I did that was somehow a successful run, as that was a brutal bloodbath that saw me run through almost all of the units I got (only one unit was alive to sit on the bench for the last chapter...)

Getting Charlotte caught up isn't as hard as you are acting, especially when she gets a +4 damage and +20 crit against every promoted enemy in her first two chapter (barring one in each) thanks to her personal skill. Once you catch her up she is a combat monster that is well worth the effort, and your weird insistence that 60+ health makes a unit a glass canon is as nonsensical as ever. Odin is about the only unit with the stats to Nosferatu tank in this game, and its an incredibly useful trait. Just because a unit has a unique trait, doesn't mean they are garbage. Having used Niles into the lategame on multiple runs, even on Lunatic, take Shadow Mir's complaint with a massive grain of salt. Also Gazak is great, Shadow Mir just hates Axes in this series. Nyx is fine, nothing too special, but it you want a traditional earlygame mage, she is your option.

...sigh....I know it is not that big of a deal, but having this small detail pointed out annoys me anyway. While my first thought is that they should have made a complete support chain for the first half, and a second complete different support chain for the second half, with a bond support like mechanic to bridge the mechanical components of supports (and possibly trigger alternate dialogue in the part 2 versions) but the number of supports you drown in for this game is already exhausting. I guess they could have been a little more restrictive with whom can support with eachother to help with the support bloat this might exacerbate. I was more pointing out what really pushes this map into the softlock territory, rather than suggesting how to "fix" the map. If I were trying to fix the map I would have the game autolevel them to some base level (like normal mode does, although what that base level would be dependent on the difficulty), giving them free access to one class in that level tier for anyone that got autoleveled (based on who it is), and have a prep screen for Byleth and the Lord, and one for each group that appears. It would maintain the feel of the map, and let it keep that questionable Maddening difficulty, but remove the big points of softlock potential.

Then a great place to start is Blazing Blade, as it starts with a robust (but admittedly a bit hand holdy) tutorial that should give you a good grounding to start off the rest of the series. Sacred Stones is very similar to Blazing Blade/FE7, but generally considered easier, and brought back, and refined some innovative ideas from older part of the series. The SNES "trilogy" are so very different from eachother that the idea of calling them a trilogy feels almost foreign. Mystery of the Emblem includes a remake of the first Fire Emblem game, with a few maps and characters removed so they can fit and entirely new sequel, making it effectively two games in one. Genealogy of the Holy War is often considered the game with the best story, but there are people that really dislike the gameplay decisions that were made in it, so your mileage may vary. Thracia 776 should be played after Geneaology of the Holy War, as the opening to Thracia 776 spoils part of Geneaology of the Holy Wars story, and it is a midquel anyway. Also you should be warned that Thracia 776 is aggressively unfriendly to blind players, so looking things up, and asking for advice is generally seen as a good idea when playing that game for the first time. Then Gaiden, I would say so, although in a lot of ways it is very faithful to Gaiden. There is, although I have never been one to purchase DLC, so I don't have much knowledge, or strong opinions of it. Yes, the Conquest as DLC is literally identical to the game on the Conquest cartridge. That being said, don't let Conquest's reputation for difficulty dissuade you from playing it, as it is in the opinion of many, the best gameplay in the whole series, and there are plenty of people on the forum that would be happy to give out advice if you need it while playing.

I am a little saddened that you removed his face scars, as they are one of his most striking features. Legault is a rather interesting character, with a surprising large number of boss conversations, and talks about Uhai in a few of them. Also even if he is unrecruited, or dead he shows up in the story to talk about the Black Fang, which can get a little odd. Looks like you missed yesterday. I Hope you are doing OK, and were just too busy or something.

Reasonably well trained is a bit of an understatement, thanks to Maddening stat inflation and more restrictive experience curve, plus terrible luck with growths is a thing, although mitigated by how class change works in this game. Additionally you are underestimating the penalty of the missing preps menu. If Byleth was in a class to grind class mastery on chapter 12 instead of the kind of class they want to practically solo a map, you are stuck with that. If equipping a skill would help you clear this mess, then you are fresh out of luck. Its hard to use your gambits well when you lack the prep screen you need to actually get them onto the units that are on this map. I guess the gambits on the battalions that appear on the lords tend to be fairly good, so that is at least 2 good gambit uses for the map. If you do have some units that are usable, they might not have the items, and weapons they need to hit the key benchmarks of the map (not to mention the class/battalion issue they may have as well). Although to the maps credit, there are quite a few droppable concoctions for healing supplies. People talk about this map softlocking maddening runs for a reason. Honestly, if you could access even just the part of the preps that didn't involve deployment/repositioning I don't think it would have the reputation it does. There are lots of resources (like gambit, or accessories, or relics, or...) that could help swing things, even with units with little training or terrible stats, but where those resources need to be on chapter 13 isn't easy to determine before you start chapter 12 (and god forbid you need them on chapter 12 itself). Edit: @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate In the latter you are fine as long as you have a hammer, and let the BK come to you.

Ah softlock by daybreak...Thankfully the Maddening update hadn't dropped before I started my second run, or else I might have ran into a literal softlock, as I went a bit overboard with out of house recruitment on that run, which made this chapter unpleasant to play through (admittedly having a free turn one flier in Claude's did help) I really despise this chapter thanks to the long shadow it lays on a lot of classic FE challenge runs... The mission and chapter names are Hunting by Daybreak, and Reunion at Dawn, which makes its sound like the battle is taking place during those last moment of night before the millennium day dawns. My guess is you awaken on the evening before, and the events before the battle are the night before (with no sleep to be had for our sleeping beauty of a Byleth) A reference to the legends about one of the more prolific serial killers of olden times (the 1600s for her), Elizabeth Bathory, that was said to bath in the blood of her young victims to maintain her youth. There is no evidence she actually did bath in the blood of her victims, but when she was arrested they did find a mutilated dead girl, and another that was still alive, but had already undergone rounds of torture/mutilation. She was convicted of around 80 murders (although there were allegations that she had 650 victims), and due to how high in the ranks of nobility she was, she was confined to house arrest until her death instead of being executed.

Again the Agarthans bypass Byleths power in the cutscenes...if only they did it in the gameplay as well. I guess it doesn't matter that much in this route... sigh... Its probably a little too early to get into it, but there should have been a fight against actual Agarthans in Azure Moon instead of just against disguised Agarthans... While comas are a thing, Byleth would still need to be feed, watered, and moved in some way to survive those 5 years, which doesn't seem to be what happened... Honestly @Etrurian emperor's idea is the best way to cover this 5 year long plot-hole. This feels like the natural place to make those Crest Stones Edelgard tried to (or did) steal last chapter matter by tying the number of Demonic Beasts increase with the number of Crest Stones successfully stolen. ...sigh, Three Houses is trying to keep more balls in the air than it can handle, and thus keeps dropping the ball on key details like this.

On the Castlevania side, you could always start with the game that added the vania to that portmanteau, Symphony of the Night. Aria of Sorrow is another solid entry for that as well.

Ishtar

Get well soon yourself.

If I am going to Luna cheese, I just use Athos for that...but I actually like to use Canas, he is a fun unit with a legit monocle. Plus this chibi image of him falling with nothing in his hand is kinda funny. Just out of curiosity, have you even gotten his support with Rebecca, and discovered his secret origin?

Get better soon, and hopefully its not...

Part of the story complaint is in how it is told through a lot of information tapes, which is a bit of a hassle, and easy to forget about. Plus "part 2" is very, very clearly incomplete. I guess it also indulges in an issue that MGS4 had as well in trying to "solve" a lot of plot points that didn't need solving using using parasite (whereas the joke with MGS4 was that nanomachines were the answer to everything). Its also a bit less of a focus in this game than in a lot of the previous ones. Plus the big twist ending of the game can be given away VERY early if you have played the series... Gameplaywise, its a bit of a mixed bag. The thing it does best is the bread and butter, moment to moment gameplay. Admittedly that is a majority of the game, and a great positive to have, but I have some notable complaints about the gameplay beyond that. The equipment/upgrade system I found rather grindy, unsatisfying, and there were multiple points in the game where it feels like it assumes you have certain equipment, that I didn't have access to (and would be difficult to get access to) thanks to the equipment/upgrade system. The boss fights were also very unsatisfying, especially when compared to older games in the series, the only one I kinda liked was the Quiet fight (and even then it is only the second best sniper boss fight in the series...). The way the main maps of the Afghanistan, Angola-Zaire Border Region, and Mother Base worked outside of the main missions felt like a lot of wasted effort, only left open for a grind that felt otherwise redundant to the game. Also leaving out Davaid Hayter feels so very, very wrong...

Ah what the hell, once I finish up with MGS5 (which I have bee working on, and I am getting rather close to the end), I will play through Yakuza 0.

Hope I am not too late to wish you a Happy Birthday Sooks!!! Bah, don't worry about balance in a gatcha game, making it unbalanced is what draws in the whales.

That is one of the cooler features of DS2 that I rarely used in game...then again I did the whole playthrough (barring a brief period when I went after Dark Stalker) with the Challenge Rock as my covenant, so one major feature of it wasn't a major part of my playthrough. I must admit, playing DS1 second, there were a few times where I joked about people complaining about the DS2 hitboxes, given some of the ones in that game...

I think the most charitable interpretation is that they are trying to capture that revenge doesn't result in the kind of emotional release we think it does, it simply leaves you feeling empty. Random side note, but Kronya's early appearance in FEH made me think she was going to be a much more prominent villain than she was, which made her very early death feel really, really weird and out of place.

Damn, well done, as that fight is tough. I am guessing you knew to save some stakes to kill the spirits that would otherwise heal the boss, as I know that can be a problem for blind players... Personally I found the small shift in tempo when he buffs his swords (and the massive damage he deals after that point) made the second half of that fight extremely difficult with little margin for error, and with getting to that second half not being trivial, getting a chance to practice the timing on that second half... To be fair, Pursuer isn't easy without the ballista method... Well done (hopefully you didn't bother with the Ancient Dragon fight...I ended up using the max fire defense method for that...) Congratulation (and seeing as that is like 40 soul levels above my clear, yeah you might be a little overleveled). Fun fact, New Game+ does change thing a bit. I am looking forward to your thoughts on it, but I am guessing it will be less positive than my own. I actually touched on this in my big Dark Souls 2 story rant. It fits well with the key themes about the endless cycle dragging thing into madness, as even the world itself hollows...