lenticular

I am fascinated by this part about long-lived pegasuses, because it raises so many questions for such an innocuous throw-away line. How long do they live for? Do they typically stay in military service for their whole ridiculously long lives, or are they put out to pasture after a while? Are they a complete nightmare to breed? Because with that sort of lifespan, if they aren't panda tier for captive breeding, then either we're going to see an infestation of pegasuses or we're killing them in droves on the battlefield. Aside: When we get dolphin laguz, I want to see pegasus laguz as well. Late game PoR gets super generous with the bonus exp. I guess the idea is that everyone is high level by that point so they need to give more if it's going to be even remotely relevant. It's a little weird, though, since you're really past the point where you need it at this point. I guess it's nice if you're trying to push to get characters to level 20 for the transfer bonus, though. How big a difference does it make? It's been a long while since I played Radiant Dawn, but I'd have thought that all the switching between armies and resultant availability issues stop it from being too much of a game-breaker. I can see how having a boosted Jill and Zihark would make some of the Dawn Brigade levels easier, but that's only a handful of levels, the bonuses aren't that huge, and there are still a lot of other levels where transfer bonuses aren't going to help out at all.

Path of Radiance was my first, and I've also just replayed it, finishing last night, so it's fresh in my mind. There are a lot of minor tweaks and fixes I'd make, but if I could only pick two: 1. Completely redo The Feral Frontier. I hated that map so much. It combines a bunch of my least favourite features of Fire Emblem maps: restricted movement, wide open space with few interesting terrain features, secrets that you can't reasonably hope to find unless you're using a guide, enemies who you're not supposed to kill but who are going to attack you anyway. It's a hot mess which I had no fun at all playing, and I'd like it to be ripped out and replaced with a completely new, better map. 2. Rework the support system. Mechanically, I don't have a problem with it. I like the different affinities and the bonuses they provide, and don't have a problem with being able to have a limited number of support bonuses. What is a pain, though, is the limit to how many support conversations you're able to see. Only being able to get one A support per character per playthrough means that you need to beat the game a minimum of 7 times if you want to see everything. To keep things simple and fairly true to the original, I'd change it so you can view as many support conversations as you want -- provided you qualify for them -- but have to choose only two per character to use in battle. The exact numerical values of the bonuses could be teaked so that going from a max of one A and one B to two As wouldn't be too much of a buff, because if there's one thing this game doesn't need, it's to be made easier.

Bringing this back on topic, you've formed your opinion based on only having played Crimson Flower, which is the route that portrays Edelgard at her most sympathetic and Rhea at her most villainous. Crimson Flower was the first route that I played as well, and my perception of the story and characters changed a lot as I played the other three routes. Of course, you should play the game in whatever way will be most fun and satisfying to you, but I feel there's a lot of benefit in playing all the routes to get as complete a version of the story as possible. If nothing else, if you play all four routes and still feel that Rhea is an irredeemable villain, then you'll be able to do so with increased authority and conviction. (Even with all of that said, though, I still wouldn't recommend Silver Snow as your second route, since it has the same set of students, and the other houses should have a chance to shine.)

I honestly can't remember exactly where all the different parts are from. I have completed all four routes, obsessively talked to everyone in the monastery on every month in all four routes, and S supported with Rhea, so it could come from anywhere. I don't have the time to write a fully-sourced argument, nor do I want to derail this thread too much, but I'll expand a little bit. (Big spoilers for all routes, especially for the characters of Edelgard and Rhea.) And that's as far as I'm willing to go here, as I don't want to derail this thread. If anyone wants to discuss further, this should go to its own thread.

Honestly, I feel that Rhea is a better mirror for Edelgard than Dimitri is. The two of them have a whole lot in common -- deeply traumatic childhoods leading to power grabs, good intentions for what to do with their power but end up deploying some deeply questionable methods, very naive moralities that see everyone as either for them or against them and brook no disagreement, etc. Yes, on a surface level, Dimitri and Edelgard have a history together, but the shared history turned them into very different people with very different motivations and character arcs. On the other hand, Edelgard and Rhea both end up walking the same tragic path, and I think that seeing both of their stories helps me appreciate both of them a lot more.

For my money, Azure Moon is better in terms of characters and characterisation but Verdant Wind is better in terms of lore and world building. If you have a strong preference for either of those two strands of storytelling, then I would let that guide your choice.

For FE maps in general, one of the things that I enjoy the most is having multiple side objectives to pursue. It's more fun for me to try to come up with a plan to recuit a unit and open some treasure chests and keep some NPCs alive and meet a turn limit and kill an enemy commander than it is to plan for only killing the enemy commander. Side objectives don't really work well in final maps, though, because there isn't really any incentive to accomplish them. For the rest of the game, they can give rewards, like items, unit recruitment, bonus xp, whatever, but in the final map, you're typically past the point where that matters. Outside of some sort of raking system or different endings based on how you complete the final level, I'm not really sure what the solution for that is. Maybe they could give instant bonuses that would help signifcantly in the final map itself? Like, what if in Path of Radiance, you didn't get the laguz royal automatically, but only through a side objective? Then maybe some other side objective could give a blessing to another unit of your choice so they could damage Ashnard, and maybe another one that would give you Urvan that could also be used to damage Ashnard, and so on? Would something like that work?

It's a neat idea, but I'm doubtful it would work well in practice. I like having enemy AI be predictable. It doesn't necessarily have to be predictably awful but being able to predict how it's going to behave is important for planning what moves to make, what tactics to use. It's frustrating to make a plan that would work perfectly based on the "rules" as you understand them, only to learn afterwards, too late, that the rules are different. Sure, it's possible to memorise multiple different sets of AI behaviour rules, but that doesn't really help when you encounter them the first time, nor does it sound like it would be particularly fun, to me. It's also possible for the player to use more universally applicable tactics that will beat any AI behaviour, but that also doesn't sound like something I'd have fun with. Generally speaking, the most universally applicable approach is to play cautiously, turtle up, advance slowly. On the other hand, I find that I have most fun when I am able to play more aggressively. I like splitting my forces to achieve multiple goals simultaneously; I like getting within milimetres of overextending myself but not quite getting there; I like being able to make plays that seem like they should be risky but are actually perfectly safe. That sort of thing requires knowing how the AI will behave.

In theory, yes. In practice, every single customisation option in a game has a cost. They take time to implement that could be spent on other things, they make the UI more cluttered and less user friendly, they make it way less likely that the game will be well-balanced across all different choices of settings, and so on. The question isn't whether there is a benefit to having more options, because there almost always is. The question is whether or not the benefits of adding/keeping an option outweigh the costs.

Part I is pretty much the same regardless of which house you play, with only minor differences in things like dialogue (and which characters you have, of course). Part two changes things up a lot, though, with different story, different maps, different bosses, etc. There is some overlap, some maps that are reused across routes, some story beats that play out the same way, etc. but it's a different experience overall.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that church units are inherently bad or not worth using. Like the rest of the cast, they range from decent to great, and all are completly usable on maddening, let alone hard. Some of them are stronger than others, of course, but that's true for the students as well. With the possible exception of the house leaders, there's probably a similar range of unit strength in the church as there is in the students. Catherine and Seteth are both great from the moment you get them, and can contribute meaningfully with very little investment. I assume Jeritza is the same, though I've yet to have a chance to use him. The others are less obviously good, but all have their place and all are viable. Manuela can sit in bishop as a dedicated warper or easily go falcon knight (her growths are pretty much the same as Ingrid's). I've never really used Hanneman, but really want to try the magic bow sniper build for him, because it sounds like a lot of fun. Shamir arrives in sniper long before anyone else can get it and so gets access to hunter's volley long before anyone else can. Cyril has point blank volley and vengeance, and has all the skill proficiencies for either wyvern lord or bow knight. Flayn has fortify and great magic growths. Alois and Gilbert are hard for me to get enthusiastic about because they don't have anything that makes them really stand out, but they're both perfectly decent, usable units. And I will never defend Anna because having no supprts is indefensible, but she's still usable. I guess. If you have to.

It depends how much favouritism you show to a unit, honestly. If you use someone in all battles, make sure they're acting every turn, give them a knowledge ge, etc. then they're going to be more easily mastering skills than someone who doesn't. It also depends on your play style. If you're the sort of person who likes to meticulously clear all enemies on every map, you'll be mastering a lot more classes than if you like clearing maps in one turn using stride, dance, and warp. Also bear in mind that different classes take different amounts of class xp to master so it's a lo easier to master beginner classes than master classes. And so on and so forth. As a rough estimate, if you plan properly, I'd say you can reasonably expect for anyone to master noble/commoner, one beginner class, one intermediate class, and one advanced class. Or noble/commoner, one beginner class, and two intermediate classes. As an upper limit, you could maybe manage noble/commoner, one beginner class, two intermediate classes, one advanced class, and one master class. More than that is possible, but would be extremely ambitious to aim for if you aren't planning a whole lot of grinding.

A lot of the time, losing a unit isn't because of a mistake made just now, but a mistake made a turn or two ago. It's not always a single bad attack, but bad overall tactical play leading to overextension, or similar. For myself, I am quite content to rewind as far back as it takes, because I enjoy the process of finding the perfect tactics for a given map, but I can definitely see how people who like casual mode might not want to have to do that. For a player who is only really playing for the story and the characters and wants an easy romp of a gameplay experience, I don't think that time-rewind on its own would be a good susbstitute.

In fairness, this is Begnion we're talking about here. They're mostly going to be fighting against, what? Malcontents and bandits, and an occasional border skirmish against Daein? Whereas they are the military of the largest and strongest country in the known world. They probably have a numerical advantage in most of their fights, so the best tactics would be whichever ones best took advantage of this in order to minimise losses. I'm pretty sure he calls them sub-humans or half-breeds or other slurs along those lines. So he's either at least casually racist or he's really committed to the role of pretending to be.

Sure, playing on anything other than the highest difficulty setting might unfairly hurt the difficulty score you give in the end, but at the same time, if you do play on highest difficulty then that might unfairly hurt the score you give for balance, usability or ironmanability. Unless you play through every difficulty setting -- which would be a terrible idea -- then you're always going to end up with a somewhat skewed perspective, whichever way you go. I'd say to go with whatever difficulty setting a. seems like the most fun to you and b. is most likely to be representative of the experience of an average Fire Emblem fan playing the game. Which, in both cases, is probably going to avoid hard-for-hard's-sake difficulty.

So, I was inspired by this thread to drag my Gamecube out of storage and do a replay of my own. I did this chapter a couple of days ago, and for some reason, I kept having Boyd be the one to trigger the pits over and over. I wasn't paying much attention to what exact tiles people were walking over, and a lot of the time my other units walked around the pit only for Boyd to fall into it. Imagining what this must have looked like and how annoyed he must have been made the whole thing infinitely more hilariously and less annoying than it would otherwise have been.

Ignatz seems like an ideal choice to me. He has the strength in authority, doesn't have high charm for offensive gambits, and generally doesn't have high damage output so it isn't as if you're ruining a good combat unit by giving him a batallion with bad stats. He also has the ability to offer support when he isn't dancing in the form of rallies, ward arrow and break shot. As for class: anything with a horse. Bow knight seems like it would probably be the ideal choice for Ignatz, but getting him there takes some work. Valkyrie Annette might be another good choice.

For me, chance/luck/RNG is interesting when it leads to contingency planning. I like having to think about what I do when something doesn't go to plan. For instance, if I form a strategy for a turn but it relies on some unit hitting an 80% hit, then I'm going to want to perform that attack first in my turn and have an alternate plan in mind for if it misses. Maybe if it misses I need to pull the unit back with rescue and then turtle up for a turn, rather than advancing as I had been planning, for instance. I enjoy this type of planning and controlled risk taking. On the other hand, enemy crits can often be inherently impossible to recover from. If a unit dies, then they are lost forever (casual mode in newer titles excepted). If a main character dies, then it's game over. There's no contingency plan for this, nothing you can do to mitigate the bad luck if it happens, no interesting decisions. The only available options are to never attack anything that has even a 1% chance of a lethal crit on a unit you're unable or unwilling to lose, or to go ahead and do it anyway and be willing to reset if things go wrong. The former leads to very cautious gameplay that relies on using the same overpowered units or strategies repeaetedly, while the latter just comes down to luck. I find neither option fun or interesting.

Maybe exrapolating from border conflicts? There have been times when small bits of border land have been conquered, so maybe something similar happened in those cases? Or maybe Soren is just a cynical bastard who assumes the worst in every possible scenario. This does bring to mind the part near the beginning when someone mentions Crimea being the closest thing the Greil mercs have to a homeland. Which, given that we now know that Greil was from Daein and Ike and Mist were born in Gallia, yeah, that totally makes sense as a comment and actually works as pretty nice foreshadowing.

Nealuchi refers to himself as an "old crow" at one point. It's in his conversation with Reyson before Feral Frontier.

Obviously, a lot is dependent on individual tastes and preferences (I loved all the down-time and character building and everything, but that's just me). That said, if you strongly dislike all the monastery stuff from the beginning, it doesn't have any sort of fundamental change that's likely to suddenly make you start enjoying it. The battles definitely do get a lot more involved as the game progresses, and end up much more interesting than early tutorial battles. The game is still playable if you skip over a lot of the monastery stuff, though. It's a bit harder that way than if you spend a lot of time min-maxing all the out-of-battle stuff, but definitely playable. Maybe try playing it that way and seeing if it clicks any better for you?

Personally, I think I'm just going to assume that all the maps that we see are pretty bad. It wouldn't really be surprising; in our world, when we were at a comparable tech level to Tellius, our cartography was also fairly rubbish by modern standards. There's also at least some evidence that they don't have great maps. Nasir running the ship aground when being chased by ravens suggests they probably don't have great naval charts. The desert east of Daein was completely unmapped allowing Hatari to remain hidden. Stuff like that. If all the maps that we see are considered as in-universe maps, then all the problems with size and distance can be explained away.

Personally, I consider Lorenz to be decent enough to be perfectly usable, but still within the lower echelons of the game's characters. (I don't consider any of this game's characters to be outright bad. Even the worst ones are at least OK.) Looking at some of your points, though. Thyrsus is a bit weird because its two effects are at odds with each other. +2 range is great for ensuring that your mage isn't on the front line and in harm's way but the pavisse/aegis effect only does anything if you are taking a hit. Lorenz is one of the few units who can benefit from both effects, but I''m not sure that's worth it compared to putting it on some other mage and using the extra range to help never be hit and not need pavisse/aegis. I also don't think it's fair to say that he's the only bulky mage, although he is one of the better units in that particular niche. But if you're looking for a bulky mage, you could also use Manuela, Edelgard, or Sylvain, for instance. All of them have drawbacks, but all of them have advantages that Lorenz doesn't as well. I don't particularly value Ward or Agnea's Arrow either. Ward isn't a very useful effect most of the time, and I only really use it in siuations where I have a turn and nothing else to do and may as well grab a bit of experience. Even in situations where stacking res would be useful, Pure Water and Rally Res both exist as options. Maybe I'm sleeping on it, but I've found it consistently underwhelming. Agnea's Arrow does great damage, of course, but its weight, accuracy, and uses are all downsides. For me, the highlights of his spell list are Ragnarok (only 1 might less than Agnea's Arrow and is otherwise strictly better and he gets it earlier) and Recover (which is mediocre on a lot of units, but works well on a front-liner with high mobility). The big selling points of Gremory are +5 magic and double spell uses. Simply from a damage output perspective, +5 magic isn't as good as +2 magic and tomefaire but it isn't far behind. It also applies to healing (though not as well as the bishop's dedicated bonus), and to spell ranges, which can be important for the likes of warp and rescue. Double spell uses is particulary amazing for single use spells like warp and meteor, bu is good for anyhing which doesn't have many uses. Bolting, rescue, fortify, thoron, dark spikes, luna, etc. I'm sure Lorenz would love an extra three uses of Ragnarok. This is not to say that Gremory is the be all and end all of magic classes, but it's certainly a strong class.

I've always found the concerns about Raphael's speed to be somewhat overblown. Sure, he's slow as a tortoise wading through treacle but in practical terms, there often isn't any difference between terrible speed and mediocre speed. If you're making a fortress knight, it doesn't matter whether your speed growth is 15 (Raphael) or 30 (Balthus), you're still getting doubled by basically everything. If you send both through fighter and armor knight, then certify in warrior for the stat boosts, then spend the rest of the game in fortress knight, then by level 40 you'll expect (on average) Raphael to have a speed of 9 and Balthus to have a speed of 12. That is just not a significant difference at that level. I know a lot of people hate fortress knight and will never use it, and that's fine. I find it completely usable, but to each their own. But for anyone who is looking to build a physical wall, he's one of the best, if not the best. You may not like his niche or ever want to use it, and I totally understand that, but at least he has a niche.

Getting to C in a skill is super easy even without a strength, though. Even characters with axe weakness like Bernadetta aren't going to have much difficulty going into brigand for long enough to pick up death blow. Having a strength in a skill is really nice if you're trying to get it up to A or S, but doesn't offer much when you're only going for C. It will let you get to C slightly quicker, so it is better than nothing, but not by all that much. And besides, it's not like he's the only one with strength in both axes and bows. Cyril and Petra both do as well, as does Claude if you pick up his budding talent, and all three of them have other things going for them as well.