Whisky

Oh hey, this topic has been resurrected? Cool. Ranulf says that the Black Knight is able to move very fast for wearing heavy armour. I think he seems to imply that the armour is still weighing him down, but he's able to move fast despite that. He is no doubt very fast, but still chooses to wear heavy armour that does weigh him down. Ike is clearly faster, and Stefan faster than that, at least stat wise. It would seem strange to me to see Ike doubling the Black Knight in their fight, and then say that the Black Knight is probably not slower, because Ranulf said that he was fast. I think that the Black Knight is very strong and fast. We are talking about the best swordsman on the continent here. The Black Knight is certainly faster than most knights, even when wearing such heavy armour, but I don't think he's as fast as either Ike or Stefan, but I do think that he is stronger then them. We know that he is certainly very strong. There is no explicit dialogue about who is stronger between Ike and the Black Knight, but stat wise, the Black Knight has more Str, so I'd say he's stronger, but Ike is ultimately able to defeat him overall. All three of them are very skilled swordsman, and so was Gawain in his prime. I personally think that the implication of the Black Knight's line is that Ike has become as strong as Gawain was in his prime and that the Black Knight has not surpassed him, but that may be open to interpretation. I would add in Ashnard as well as being among the 4 best swordsman on the continent, although the fact that he fights while literally flying on a dragon probably has something to do with why he would be good in combat, and he might not actually be as good of a swordsman.

I already wrote up a whole essay on the game, and you want me to write more about it? Well alright. The first time I played Binding Blade, it was actually one of my least favorite. Probably because I played it in Japanese and didn't know what was going on. For a long time, I would have considered FE7 to be my favorite, which I now consider to be pretty over rated (I still like it though). It wasn't until much more recently that I replayed Binding Blade, and really started to like it more after that. It seems like, the more times I play it, the more I like it. The more I play FE7, the more its flaws stand out to me. I've played various randomizers on each of the GBA games, and Binding Blade really feels the best for these playthroughs. There's so much that I like about this game. I don't feel like repeating anything that I said in previous posts right now, but there's a lot of good things to say about this game, and the more I play it, the more good things I notice. For example, the Archers, Wolt and Dorothy, are considered to be very weak, but it's easy for them to contribute in some way, especially against the Wyvern Riders in Chapter 7. Even weak units can help out a lot in this game. Being able to deploy a lot of units makes it easier for weaker units to see more action too, unlike FE7, where the developers thought that the best way to make the game harder was to restrict how many units you can use while spamming hordes of enemies at you. I have no issue with POR winning this poll though. It's a good game. Sacred Stones, POR, and Binding Blade are probably my top 3.

@whase I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I like using kind of weak units sometimes although, Wendy and Sophia are bit too extreme for me. They are there for people like you that want to use them though, and don’t make the game any worse for people that don’t want to use them. The game has plenty of good units for people that prefer using them. I don’t see why you don’t like Alan and Lance. They’re good but not overpowered. - Update on my Ironman run with Garret. I’m actually very impressed with him. I thought I was just going to prove that he’s not “unusable”, but now I think I might actually go as far as saying that he’s pretty good. Like I pointed out before, most units don’t ORKO most enemies in this game, and his Crit bonus actually makes him more likely to ORKO a lot of enemies than most other units, including enemy Wyverns in Chapter 21, unless those other units are using Divine Weapons. He really doesn’t get doubled by many enemies, but he does need to watch out for the particularly fast ones. He has really high HP, making him pretty tanky. Accuracy isn’t nearly as much of an issue as people claim. If you want to get more out of him, you can give him a SpeedWing, though he does have a lot of competition for that. He joins for free, requiring no investment. He’s a lot better than I previously thought. On another note, after playing an Ironman of this game, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to playing with resets. Ironmans are so much fun.

Oh dang. I’m too scared to try that. Wolt is too good.

Eventually. But I do think Marcus is still very helpful for a little while after getting Zealot.

Why not both?

Supposedly, his criteria is being both efficient and effective. He values getting as much exp as possible and wants his units to be as strong as possible at the end of the game, even if it’s unnecessary. I might agree that Wolt can be better than Marcus at the end of the game, but arguing that he’s better overall is pretty silly. It seems like Diogo really doesn’t care how good units are early on. He only cares about how good they can be at the end of the game.

Well you know, one thing led to another. We were saying that the early-game would be impossible without Marcus, and Diogo said that the early game isn’t even that hard and Marcus isn’t that important. Also, Diogo doesn’t really care much about efficiency. He says that Amelia is good.

Diogo was arguing that Wolt is better than Marcus.

I actually think he’s still useful on Chapter 13 too. He can deal a lot of damage to the Cavaliers with a Horseslayer, and that Chapter gives you enough deployment slots that you probably don’t have enough units better than him to justify not bringing him. Against Wyverns he can hope for a Crit with a Killer Axe or use a Wrym Slayer. He isn’t great, but he is very versatile. His Rescue/Drop/Canto utility is useful here as well.

I think he’s still very helpful from Chapters 9-11 as well. Basically half the game.

Easy? The guy in the video (Diogo) completely ran out of Vulneraries and barely beat the boss only by getting a Crit. How is it easy? Your non-Marcus inits literally get killed in 2 hits and need to use Vulneraries every turn to survive, which you will run out of eventually. I agree that Chapter 4 would be much harder though.

So much more has been said by everyone else. I don’t feel the need to reply to anything specifically. I do want to share my current experience though. I am using Garret in my current Ironman playthrough, and I have to say, for a supposedly “unusable” unit with “terrible accuracy”, I am very impressed with him. He doesn’t have good Spd, but he only gets doubled by very fast enemies like Mercenaries. The majority of enemies in the game do not double him. He also has very high HP and enough Def to be able to survive quite a few hits. Offensively, his accuracy is actually pretty good against Lance enemies, which there are quite a few of. He doesn’t double anything except Armour Knights, but most of your units don’t ORKO enemies in this game, and his 30% Crit bonus actually gives him a pretty good chance to do so. If he doesn’t Crit he will deal enough damage for someone else to finish off the enemy which is about as much as you can except from most units. He can OHKO some Cavaliers with a Halberd or have over 50% Crit chance with a Killer Axe. He can also get some situational use out of being able to walk on water and peaks, the latter giving a 40% Avoid boost. Obviously he isn’t as good as Perceval, but very few units are. That’s not a fair comparison. For a unit that requires no investment, Garret isn’t bad at all. There’s plenty of things he can do.

It really depends on how they are implemented. Ambush spawns or regular reinforcements can both be implemented well or poorly. And there are examples in Binding Blade of ambush spawns being implemented both well and unfairly.

I see. Sounds pretty neat. Dieck’s leads in HP, Str, and Def are actually smaller than I thought. Rutger is pretty amazing. Dieck is still great too though. It seems like he often gets lost in Rutgers shadow when people talk about how good he is. - Like @ping said; against Lance enemies, Axes are just as accurate as Swords while being a lot stronger and better defensively. I’m not saying that these guys are good, but they are far from being “unusable”, and are better than a lot of units from other games. Relative to the other units in their game, FE7 Bartre and Dorcas are terrible. They are some of the only units too slow to double consistently in that game. And Garret actually has pretty decent stats on Hard mode. He’s kind of slow but he will only get doubled by fast enemies. He isn’t slower than Generals. At least not Douglas. And the main bad thing about Generals is the low Move. Zealot is not worth using? Zealot is one of the best units throughout the mid-game. Noah is good. Why do these units need to be considered replacement units anyway? You can use all of them. Alance, Marcus, Zealot, and Noah. Maybe throw Treck too. Why not? Cavaliers are good. You can’t have too many. Most people save all their money for Boots at the end of the game but if you mind having a little less for Boots, you will have plenty of money to buy promotion items on Chapter 16. Rei doesn’t take effort to recruit and takes less investment than Lilina because she joins under leveled. You can promote Rei as soon as you get him and he won’t be too bad. High is also not bad if you choose to use him and immediately promote him. Yodel is good for being able to use other Staves, not just the Saint Staff. Cecilia can be used past her joining map. Clarine and Cecilia are Staff users on a horse. They’re the ultimate support units. - @Shadow Mir Ambush Spawns I agree that in some cases they can be a problem, but in many cases in this game, you are given a warning about them or they spawn where they aren’t an immediate danger. For multiple playthroughs, they aren’t as bad once you already know about them. SD has them on every difficulty. And 3H ambush spawns are designed much worse than most of Binding Blades. There’s a reason they aren’t there on easier difficulties. I guess it’s just Maddening mode that is bad then. Mission Objectives There is nothing inherently bad about Seize. I can say that Rout is boring. Adding more mission objectives doesn’t make the game better. It depends on how they are implemented. In Binding Blade, you almost always have multiple ways to approach any given map which is what matters. The long winding maps are not nearly as bad as you think they are. Or it’s just subjective, in which case, you have a problem with it, it’s not the game problem. You have resources to use for these maps such as fliers to carry people over mountains and the Warp Staff. If anyone could Seize then you would still play the maps the same way, you just wouldn’t use Roy. It’s not like it’s hard to keep him out of danger. Calling it an escort mission is an exaggeration. I very much disagree with 3H not having worse FOW maps than this game. You can barely see in FOW in that game, only being able to see 2 spaces in front of you. Torches don’t do as much as they do in this game and Thieves can’t help with that. You can be safe on one spot, take one step forward and immediately get attacked by multiple enemies and die. Enemy Archers can also attack your vulnerable units even when they are 2 spaces behind your stronger units. The Arcadia Chapter is pretty straight forward, and you have resources to use such as Thieves and Torches. It’s really not that bad. Unit / Class Balance Wolt and Dorothy are really bad, but so are Wil and Rebecca. A lot of the problems you have with this game apply to most games in the series. Snipers are actually better here than in most. Axe infantry too. Dorcas and Bartre in FE7 are not good either. Axe infantry in this game aren’t good but they aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. Horse Emblem And other FE games aren’t? Again, your problem applies to almost every game in the series here, not just Binding Blade. If anything, I think horse units are actually more balanced in this game. A Swordmaster is a better unit than two Cavaliers. Can’t say that about FE7 or 8 or 9. There are plenty of good infantry units in this game. And most people consider Treck and possibly even Noah to be some of the “unusable” units, and those are on horses. Plot I’ve played SD and I can see some similarities, but I wouldn’t call it a rip off. There are a lot of differences. What’s the difference between ripping off and being inspired by? You really seem kind of biased against this game. Don’t most people consider Sacred Stones one of the better plots of the series? - Wendy Besides the low Move from being an Armour Knight, she also has some of the worst bases of all time. I think her join time is the least of her worries. Even if she joined in Chapter 1, she would still be one of the worst units.

Every game can only have so many units that are considered the best, and if only the best are worth using then a lot of good units could be considered worthless. As long as units are good enough then they’re fine. Not everyone can be the best. 1. Gonzalez and Geese aren’t too bad. They do have accuracy issues and of course the the limited Hero Crests are their biggest problem, but they’re are far from unusable. They’re better than some units in other FE games. Bartre has been mentioned. Garret isn’t too bad either. Not as much Str but he does have a 30% Crit bonus. For a unit that requires no investment and has no opportunity cost, you really can’t complain. Lott isn’t too bad either. Dorcas and Bartre In FE7 aren’t worth using past the first few chapters either. Fighters are often a bad class. This isn’t the only game where that’s true, and I think the Axe users here may be better than Dorcas and Bartre (not Dart or Hawkeye though). 2. Noah is fine. Zealot is one of the best units through the mid-game. He doesn’t need to be great for the whole game. Obviously Marcus is nearly required if not actually required for the early game. A perfect jeigan unit, unlike the overpowered FE7 Marcus and Seth. Even Treck isn’t bad considering that he’s in such a great class. He can’t really be called a bad unit. 3. Rei and Hugh aren’t bad. I think they’re actually better than Lilina. Cecilia is an amazing support unit. Yodel is good just for his Staff rank. I assume you are excluding the Staff users?

I see. Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think Zeiss would compare better to Tate rather than Miledy. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten lucky in every one of playthroughs, but Dieck has never fallen off for me. He’s always remained one of my strongest units throughout the whole game. His bases are good so I don’t know how much luck has to do with that. I’m not saying that he’s as good as Rutger, but he does have certain advantages over Rutger that it wouldn’t be fair to ignore. He doesn’t double all enemies, but he does double quite a few. He is able to survive more hits than Rutger, especially against Lances. He has access to Axes including Hand Axes. And he is stronger. Rutger might get a lot of Crits, but if he doesn’t Crit, he’s less likely to kill. He also has more Luc making him less likely to face low % Crits. Dieck doesn’t have problems with bosses, he just takes longer to kill them than Rutger, but he gets the job done. He can beat Henning and Scott just fine. In fact, he’s less likely to face Crit chance against Henning and is more likely to survive a Crit from either of these bosses. The chance of Rutger dying to these bosses might be very small, but the chance of Dieck dying can be 0. Like I said he just takes longer to kill them, but he doesn’t have problems. Regardless of how much better Rutger is than Dieck, he’s still the next best thing. It seems weird to say that the second strongest unit for a portion of the game isn’t very good. He’s the only other character that can use the Durandal for quite a while too. I don’t know what scrolls are. I’ve always hated Crit systems in most RPGs. I would rather a game be more about strategy than luck. I always liked it more in FE because you can see exactly how much Crit each enemy has and have multiple options for what do to about it. In a lot of RPGs Crits are just completely random with nothing you can do about it and that’s just dumb. - Good points. I do like the world building in FE6. Going to war with every nation reminds me of Shadow Dragon. I found Shadow Dragon confusing though. I could never keep track of which nation I was fighting at the time or who each nation was. - It’s not 90% at all. That’s a huge exaggeration. Sophia and Wendy are both terrible, but most units are not nearly that bad. We’ve just been talking about Fir who isn’t too bad despite joining quite under leveled. Very few units join as under leveled as her.

I don’t really understand the comparison with the Wyvern Riders but the rest is fair. Early promoted Dieck really is good though. He doubles and ORKOs most enemies for a while. He is very accurate and deals a lot of damage against anything he doesn’t kill. He is quite durable. He can use both Swords and Axes (which are useful), including Hand Axes for 1-2 range (again, which is useful). He is the only unit other than Rutger that can use the Durandal for a while. He’s pretty much the next best thing after Rutger. If you aren’t using Rutger, Dieck gets the job done just fine, and does it better than anyone else can for a long time. I agree with the part about not being able to anticipate them. In a lot of situations in this game, they have some warning or have them appear far enough away that they aren’t a danger, but there are some cases when you will be caught off guard and killed unfairly. The part about a first playthrough vs replay value... that’s a whole discussion on its own. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ve played Binding Blade enough that the ambush spawns usually don’t bother me anymore but I can definitely understand someone playing the game for the first time getting very frustrated. It’s a complicated topic. I guess I would rather Manaketes just be stronger rather than having a Crit chance. As is, you need to be very careful with who you have fight them. You need to use units with high enough Luc or use ranged attacks. It’s not like they aren’t manageable so I’m not sure how much of a problem it is, but I wouldn’t mind if their Crit rate was reduced. But yeah, in most cases, there are ways to avoid low % Crit deaths. Roy has high enough Luc to fight Thunder Mages or early game Mercenaries without facing a Crit chance. As do Thany and Marcus. I don’t know. In general I’m not a fan of Crits and don’t know if the game wouldn’t be better if they were just removed completely and maybe replaced with something else. Something more consistent. I just don’t like people blaming the game when there actually was something they could have done better to prevent it instead of risking the low % Crit. Good points. Thank you for bringing up this information. One thing I will add is that it’s kind of weird that an Armour Slayer is more effective against a General using a Lance than a Hammer is. But overall, like you said, Axes are very useful for Heroes and Paladins. There’s also Killer Axes at higher rank. And also like you said, Axe locked units aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. There are a lot of Lance enemies after all, and the game does have Sword Reavers too. Fighters in most other games aren’t much better anyway. Oh my bad. Thanks for correcting me. It would be hard to recruit him with Roy just because Zealot is in the way though. If you wait, then Treck becomes less likely to survive. He is about to get attacked by several enemies including a Wyvern Rider after all.

I think the fact that someone as strong as Dieck being considered only "okay" really helps the point that units in this game aren't as bad as people think. Dieck starts strong with good bases and is an absolute monster for the mid-game if promoted early and he stays pretty good throughout the whole game. This beast of a unit is generally considered only "okay". That's how "unusable" units in this game are. And that brings me to this: Oh yeah, I forgot about Klein and Tate not moving sometimes. That is pretty dumb. I'm interesting in seeing what your opinion of ambush spawns is, but if you don't feel like sharing then that's fine. I'd also be interested in the Crit thing which I may or may not agree with. To an extent, I might agree, I just don't like seeing people blaming the game's RNG for a death that they could have avoided with better strategy. I do agree that it should be toned down a bit though. The Cavaliers in Chapter 4 having low % Crit rates against most of your units is really unfair. That battle is hard enough even if they don't get a Crit. You already said that you purposely took my message out of context to expand on it, so I don't need to explain myself too much. I was just saying that that was one perspective someone could have, and not what I actually believe. But about Fir; I wasn't comparing her only to Rutger specifically. I was comparing her to both Rutger and Dieck. I consider Dieck better than her. But the fact that we can disagree about which of these units is better just shows how much better the balance is than a lot of people say. Fir joins under leveled, joining on Chapter 9 at level 1. But it's easy to get her leveled up just in time to promote her with the second Hero Crest, and you got yourself a pretty decent unit. Being under leveled isn't always as much of an issue as it might seem. I haven't used Bartre much. You do have 10 Chapters to get him leveled up a bit though so he should have a few more points of Spd by Chapter 21. Bartre can be a Brave Bow user with more than 22 Str if he gains some levels too. Oh man, I would have liked to read that "blabla". I agree that those are both secondary objectives of the map. You are not punished for letting Treck or Sophia die. If you get Sophia to the end of the map, you are rewarded with a Guiding Ring. By the way, Roy doesn't recruit Treck. Zealot does. It is possible (although not easy) to get Roy in position to recruit Zealot on the second turn who can then recruit Treck, however, this all needs to be done all while fighting half a dozen strong enemies and one of the Wyvern Riders is swooping in to threaten your team. I'm not gonna lie, I have a hard time saving Treck's life in this map. I like this this point and the points made by @JimmyBeans a lot. Thank you guys.

Yeah, that’s not a bad theory. Maybe they were planing on blaming Laus for hiring Wire. Their plan wasn’t to overthrow Ostia. It ways just to create a war to gather quintessence. Weakening Ostia might have caused the war to go for longer though which could create more quintessence. Otherwise, Ostia might be able to put Laus’ rebellion down easily without creating much quintessence. Most bosses are a class that makes sense for them though. Gameplay wise, it makes sense to fight an Armour Knight here, but it would been cooler if they could have made it for the plot a little better. I like my theory of him wearing armour to blend in with Ostia’s Armour Knights in order to sneak into the castle, but the dialogue unfortunately doesn’t support that theory. Yeah, it seems like Ephidel was the acting leader of all the Black Fang’s actions in Lycia, so it makes sense that he would be involved in some way. Unfortunately the dialogue doesn’t support that. Immoderately after the battle, Matthew states that the guards must have heard the battle and they need to leave quickly to get seen. Yeah, I agree with that. They could have portrayed him as desperate but they didn’t. He was cocky instead so ends up as somewhat of a joke when he fails. Yeah, Narshen is a great example. Sounds strange. I assume there’s no reason as to why he didn’t have his weapon besides being lazy or cocky? It definitely does seem like he should be panicked if you fight him without his weapon. Aion in FE7 is similar to this too. His battle quote is about summoning Thunder to destroy his enemies, but it’s weird when he says this while instead the Magic Seal’s effect. I’ve always found it weird that his battle quote isn’t more panicked if you fight him when the Magic Seal is still there. I haven’t played that game but it sounds like a fun moment. Depending on dialogue, I would say this might be more of culture thing like you said rather than being overconfident. Being willing to take a risk to win a fight is different from being cocky, but I’d say it depends on how he acts.

Good point. I forgot to talk about that. Moulder’s mustache is pretty high tier throughout the series. Natasha doesn’t even have a mustache. How lame is that?

I find Binding Blade to be very underrated. It seems to get way more hate than it deserves. I love this game, and think that it does a lot of things really well. I'll be the first to admit that the game has its share of flaws, but other FE games aren't without flaws either, and I think the amount of hate that Binding Blade gets is disproportionate to the problems it has compared to other games in the series. A lot of the criticisms of Binding Blade apply to other FE games too, and I think that Binding Blade does plenty of things better than a lot of other games. Personally, I think this is one of the better games in the series. A lot of this comes down to perspective. I do not think it's fair to say that a game is bad because you don't like the mentality it has. Does every unit really need to be balanced in a single player game? Not necessarily. Fire Emblem is a series that is known for its permadeath mechanic, and the games should be designed with that in mind. Units are only worthless if you reset every time a good units dies. That's a perfectly fair way to play the game, but it's a limited perspective to be criticizing the game with and calling it a huge mess. Too many units? I don't see what the problem is honestly. The game gives you a lot of options to use. Many of them are worse than units you already have but that's fine. A lot of them can act as 'replacement units' in case your good units die or maybe get bad level ups, or you just feel like using different units. If you really like Mercenaries and Heroes, than you can use both Dieck and Oujay. Obviously Rutger is a lot better than Oujay, but you have this option, and you don't have to use him if you don't want to. If certain units die, then other units become a lot more useful. Saying that most units in this game are "unusable" is a huge exaggeration. Most of them are fine. "Not one of the best top tier units" does not equal "bad" or "unusable" Most of the units in this game are more or less average, and are serviceable. The fact that the TC thought that Noah and Treck make Allen and Lance obsolete rather than the other way around show that the so called "unusable" units really aren't that bad. There's nothing wrong with Noah at all. It's a fair perspective to say that Noah and Treck are useless because Allen and Lance are just plain better. Oujay and Fir are worthless because Dieck and Rutger are much better. Most of the Axe users are worthless because they aren't worth using one of the very limited Hero Crests on them. This is a fair perspective to have but its only one limited perspective, and I don't think its fair to say that because of these things, the game is bad. If you want to only use the top tier optimal units and reset every time one of one of them dies than you can do that. The existence of worse units doesn't take away that option. All it does is give you more options, which is great for people that don't want to reset when units die or just want the option to use other units. I do agree that the game should probably be more balanced than it is, but I also think it's fine for some units to be better than others. You are supposed to be able to lose units and keep playing without resetting, and having 'replacement units' available helps make that possible. I think the game would be worse if it only had the top tier optimal units and didn't have any average units. Weapon Balance “Lances and Axes have low accuracy and are bad. Swords are too good. This makes the game unbalanced and makes some units unusable therefore removing variety and replay value”. Some of this is true. Swords are very good in this game. Some Lances and especially Axes are very inaccurate. So, Swords being good with Lances and Axes being bad is a problem in this game, but Swords being bad and Lances and Axes dominating in other games is okay? In most FE games in the series, Swords and Bows are both widely considered bad and the worst weapon types in the game. Lances and Axes are much better than Swords and Bows. In this game, it's kind of the opposite, and that makes it worse? How bad are Lances and Axes really? Are they really as bad as some people say they are? Are Lance and Axe users "unusable"? It's true that some Lances are pretty inaccurate, but that doesn't stop a Lance user from being the best unit in the game. If she specialized in Swords, she might be even better. But does anyone promote Miledy, give her a Sword, and then never have her use Lances? No, I don't think so. Miledy is very effective with Lances. She will probably use a combination of Swords and Lances. Cavaliers and Paladins can use both Swords and Lances. Since Swords are better than Lances, does that mean that you should only give Cavaliers and Paladins Swords and never have them use Lances? Again, no. Lances are plenty useful for them. They will use a combination of both. How about Axes? Axes are very inaccurate in this game. I do agree that it might be better if they were a little more accurate, but does this inaccuracy really make Axe users "unusable"? Geese and Gonzales are okay. They're not great, but they're not terrible. FE6 Bartre and Garret aren't terrible either. They're mostly just not worth using because Dieck and Rutger deserve the limited Hero's Crests more, but they're definitely not unusable. Lots of people say that they find these units fun to use. I honestly don't know if Dorcas and FE7 Bartre are any better than these units. They're definitely not top tier optimal units either. What about units that can use both Swords and Axes? Heroes and Paladins can use both, and if Swords are really so overpowered and Axes so useless than these classes should probably never use an Axe. Again, I do agree that some Axes should be a bit more accurate, but in the game as it, Axes are already useful for Heroes and Paladins sometimes. They can be effective. In the meantime, Sword users are actually in this game when they are considered bad in most of the other games in the series. Bow users too. If anything, the weapon balance kind of seems better in these games than in FE7 where Lance and Axes and more specifically Javelins and Hand Axes dominate the whole game, with Swords and Bows being bad. There's actually a reason to use almost every weapon in Binding Blade. Effective weapons are also useless in FE7 but very useful in this game. Javelins and Hand Axes are much more balanced in this game. They're still very useful to give melee units a ranged option but they aren't overpowered like they are in FE7 and a lot of other games. Bows are a lot more useful in this game and are almost useless in FE7. Unit / Class Balance Armour Knights are possibly the worst in the series in this game. But it's not like they're much better in most games. And Archers and Sword locked units are considered very bad in most games but are better in this one. One of the best units in the game is Sword locked. The game really isn't dominated by any one class in this game. Mounted units are good but are not the only units worth using. There are multiple good infantry units too. It's not like mounted units aren't some of the best in other games too. Overall, the class balance seems pretty good to me in this game. There are specific cases like Wendy and Sophia who are possibly the worst units in the series, but these are outliers. Most units in this game aren't that bad, and other games have bad units too. Having a lot of units kind of makes up for having bad units in a way. There are plenty of good options, you don't need to use Wendy or Sophia if you don't want to. After those two, I don’t think that there are any other units as bad as the worst units in FE7 or FE8. Wolt and Dorothy are bad but I think that they're better than Wil and Rebecca. I think pre-promotes are balanced very well in Binding Blade. Marcus is strong enough to help your other units get past the early game. He shows them how to get things done and then can finally retire when they no longer need him. Zealot is great when he first joins but falls off by the late game. He's very useful for a while but isn't overpowered. Echidna is similar. The late game pre-promotes range from decent to great. Perceval is amazing but isn't too overpowered. It's not like he is going to be soloing the game with how strong enemies are in this game. Even he needs help from your other units. FE7 Marcus, Pent, Harken, Seth and arguably Hawkeye are downright overpowered in comparison. In Binding Blade, you use a combination of growth units and pre-promotes. They are very useful without dominating the game like some pre-promotes do in other games. Map Design I don't really understand this one. What's wrong with the maps? I agree that Chapter 8 is slow and boring and I can see a few other maps having some problems too, but it's not like the map design is flawless in other games. Overall, I really like the map design in this game. I think it's good overall. Maps often give you secondary objectives that give you incentive to play quickly. They reward you for playing well and quickly rather than punishing you for not playing quickly enough. You often have multiple options for how you want to play any given map. It's great. The desert map isn't that bad. It's pretty straight forward and the time limit is very lenient. If you don't like FOW then how do you like Blazing Sword? That game has way more FOW maps. There's a portion of FE7 where almost every other map has FOW for a while. And in those maps, you need to worry about getting attacked from behind more than you do in FOW maps in this game. As long as you lead with your strongest units and don't send them too far ahead on their own, while using torches and thieves to light up the way, they're fine. FE7 has Battle Before Dawn and other cases where you can get a game over for failing to save a green unit in time. Battle Before Dawn combines both saving a green unit and FOW. In Binding Blade, you are rewarded for successfully saving green units, not punished for failing to do so. 3H has worse FOW maps too. Mission Objectives People criticize this game for only having Seize as the only objective for every chapter. I'm not against more variety, but I don't think having only Seize is inherently bad either. It's not like this makes every chapter the same. You still use different strategies for different chapters and can use different strategies for how you want to approach a specific map. Do you want to go straight for the throne/gate, or do you want to play through the whole thing? Like I said, I'm not against more variety but it depends on how it is implemented, and the execution of mission variety is kind of hit or miss sometimes. Some of the missions objectives in FE7 make me think that the developers were going out of there way to add in more missions just for the sake of having more objectives instead of putting them in because they actually add something to the game. Defend is an interesting concept, even if I do find certain Defend maps annoying. It would be interesting to see Defend implemented more often in a FE game, kind of like a combination of FE and Lords of the Realm II. That would be a lot different from FE though. Anyway, I like that in Defend, you can choose to actually defend the area, or take the offensive and go out and kill the enemies. Killing the boss becomes a secondary objective that you can be rewarded for doing. It is weird when you already killed every enemy and the map still doesn't end yet though. I also don't like that you fight Riev again in the next Chapter even if you defeat him the first time. I think he should have actually died. Overall, Defend is fine. Kill Boss / Claim Space are basically just variations of Seize anyway. I do like Kill Boss, and wish that it was used more often. This is one of things I like about 3H. One of the cool things about Kill Boss and that sets it apart from Seize, is that the boss can move. The problem is that bosses very rarely move even in Kill Boss chapters. I wish bosses moved more often in all of the games. That would be interesting. As long as you have some way of knowing so you don't get caught by surprise. Speaking of which, FE7 has a FOW battle with a boss that moves. That's dumb. Claim Space in the Georg and Kaim chapters is literally just Seize with a different name. I had thought that other characters could claim that space too, but no, it has to be Eliwood. Earn 3 Points in the Pascal chapter, I think would have been better as Kill All Bosses with all three promoted enemies counting as the bosses. Rout is annoying. There are a few monster maps in Sacred Stones where Rout works fine, but for the most part I don't like it. I think in some cases, Rout maps would have been better as Kill Boss or Seize. Remember that I said I like when maps give you multiple ways for how to approach them? In a Kill Boss map, you can choose whether you want to kill most or all of the enemies, or go straight for the boss and end the battle quickly. But in Rout, you don't have a choice. You just have to go around killing every last one of them, and in some cases, this can be very annoying. I would like COD better if it was Kill Boss or Seize. It's annoying when you've already killed Linus/Lloyd and then have to mop up the spams of Wyverns that keep appearing from behind you. It's annoying in Erik's chapter, when you've already killed Erik and most of the other enemies but now have to wait for a Pegasus Knight to come back from healing at a Fort. It feels weird when you've basically already won the battle and then have to hunt down the remaining enemies like an exterminator. Jerme's map is very annoying too for multiple reasons. It would be less annoying if it was Kill Boss instead of Rout. I think the Sacred Stones desert battle should have been Kill Bosses too. You should win when you've killed both Caellach and Valter. Enemy Spam I don't know where else to put this so I here I go. I hate that FE7 and to a lesser extent FE8 spam hordes of enemies at you. There are some maps where the screen is almost full of enemies. It's super annoying. In Binding Blade, each enemy is purposefully placed and defeating each enemy is a small accomplishment on its own. Enemies are strong but there aren't nearly as many of them, and in a lot of maps, there aren't very many reinforcements. What you see from the start is what you will need to deal with. FE7 and one map in particular of FE8 have so many reinforcements everywhere. I hate it. Ambush Spawns I don't know why no else has even brought this up yet. This is perhaps the only mechanic of Binding Blade that I can only defend so much. It's not a good mechanic. I don't like it. But I honestly do think it gets exaggerated a bit in this game. Binding Blade is the game that is notorious for ambush spawns but it's not the only game that has them. There are some complete bs situations of ambush spawns in this game for sure, but in a lot of cases, the game gives you warnings about them before hand or has them appear far enough away that they won't kill anyone. I think SD has worse cases of ambush spawns. That game has a lot of ambush spawns that seem to appear right when your units get to where they are and have no warning whatsoever. 3H ambush spawns are probably the worst. They are designed very very poorly in that game. There are zone reinforcements that appear right behind your units and are probably going to kill your more vulnerable units. There are a lot of ambush spawns that have Pass so you can't block them from killing your vulnerable units. And there are several cases of ambush spawns appearing without warning on top of your starting position and killing whoever is still around there. That game very rarely gives any warning about reinforcements. It's stupid. Even FE7 has some cases of unfair ambush spawns with no warning, although this is very rare in that game. Again, I will not defend unfair ambush spawns in Binding Blade. There are definitely cases of ambush spawns that are completely unfair, but why is this game the one that is notorious for it when it happens in other games and is even worse in some other games? Also, for what it's worth, ambush spawns aren't so bad once you're familiar with the game, though that's not exactly a good defense. Plot Maybe slightly off topic. No one has said anything about the game's plot in this thread, but I have seen people say that the plot is bad and boring before. I don't have much to say about this one except that I don't understand it. The plot isn't perfect nor is it a masterpiece but it's pretty good, and is a lot better than the plot in some other FE games, like FE7 that everyone seems to love. Conclusion Binding Blade is far from perfect. It is has its share of flaws, but it gets a lot of unjustified hate. People think way to negatively of this game for unfair reasons. Like I said before, the amount of hate that this game gets is disproportionate to the amount of flaws it has compared to some other FE games. I think that there are a lot of things that it does better than many of the other games and these things get completely overlooked for some reason. I'm all for criticizing things, but only if it's done fairly and without bias. Blazing Sword is a very popular and widely loved game. I like it too but not as much as Binding Blade. Binding Blade is often regarded as one of the worst games in the series. I think it's one of the better games of the series and I think Blazing Sword has a lot of its own problems that people overlook or ignore. If you don't like Binding Blade, that's fine, but maybe try looking at it from a different perspective and considering if your problems with it are personal or actual flaws of the game, before calling it terrible or a huge mess. It's not a bad game.

Well it could be explained that he had no other choice but to risk the spell back firing. Roy was going to defeat him regardless otherwise. However, that’s contradicted by him being confident rather than desperate. He also blames Niime instead of taking responsibility. I kind of thought that she knew what she was doing and purposeful froze the river. I thought the only reason she tells him it might backfire is to have an excuse for when she purposely freezes the river. Maybe I interpreted that event wrong. Anyway, I’m sure we can find a lot of bosses that make mistakes due to being overly cocky. Doesn’t Narshen fit this too?

This is true. That’s actually a surprisingly good explanation. So theoretically, if Hector did call the guards, it might have started a war? Why wasn’t Wire working for Ephidel though instead of Nergal? And did finding the bodies not start the war? I don’t think that’s fair. Healing Staves can exist. They only become a problem when we have a scene of someone injured and no one tried to heal him... which does happen at least once. And Canas is just a badass. This is probably true. 1. That works, but it’s weird. 2. You think so? How much of a presence did Nergal have on the Black Fang exactly? Brenden was still the leader and Sonia was the one manipulating him. So Nergal would have appeared to be a mid level Black Fang member, if anyone knew about him? I kind of thought his existence wasn’t known to most of the Black Fang. I guess some people definitely knew. 3. yay! Excuses! Good job writers! Just an incompetent failure. What did Martel do that was similar? This could explain it. I mean, I doubt the writers put as much thought into as you, but it works lol. Wouldn’t the corpses raise some questions though?

At the beginning of Hector Mode, Hector is trying to sneak out of the castle without telling Uther. At the same time, on the same day, Black Fang Assassins led by Wire attempt to kill him. That’s pretty coincidental timing. What if they showed up after Hector left? Why did Nergal want Hector killed anyway? How did he even know who Hector was at this point? Hector is the younger brother of the Marquess of Ostia. Wouldn’t it make more sense to target Uther? Wire works directly for Nergal, by the way. When he dies he says “forgive me... Lord ... Nergal”. Why is Nergal directly giving orders to low ranking Black Fangs instead of going through Sonia? And why does Nergal want Hector killed enough to directly order a Black Fang to kill him, but not enough to actually get someone other than such an incompetent and low ranking member? Wire’s assassination attempt was a complete failure. Hector realizes the first assassin is hiding and kills him before he has a chance to try anything. Wire and the rest of the squad are in other rooms waiting for Hector to try to leave. Hector could have called for the guards at this point. Did Wire know that Hector was too stubborn to call for guards? What a failure of an assassin. Wait, why is an assassin wearing heavy armour? Oh, he’s trying to sneak into Castle Ostia which is known for its Armour Knights, so he’s wearing the armour as a disguise to sneak in. That makes sense right? Well the disguise completely failed because Hector immediately kills the first assailant and never thinks that Wire is a Castle guard. Later on in the Pirate Ship chapter, Hector says that he was attacked by “dark roped” guys. So apparently the armour wasn’t a disguise. Their dark robes still made them stand out. Why are assassins wearing clothes that make them stand out enough for Hector to remember seeing similar clothes from the enemies several chapter later? And this brings us back to: Why was Wire, an assassin, wearing heavy armour? Why was he such a failure? And why did Nergal directly order him to kill Hector? Does any of this make sense?