Skynstein

Makes sense... That would be cool actually. Also for your sake I'll try not to call the avatar "MU". I dislike the paralogues sometimes because I'm invested in the story and then when they appear I feel forced to take a break and do them, because they sometimes have very useful stuff (like Rescue staff in Paralogue 1). I like most of the cast in Awakening. They all have redeeming moments. Even Tharja.

Actually it exists but is a fanfic term that was wrongly transposed to the literary world to mock female characters who were above average in terms of whatever ability they may have had. It originated in fanfics and should stay in fanfics, because its only purpose is found in fanfics. A Mary Sue is when we self-insert into the fanfic we're writing with the purpose of personal gratification. I should know as I used to do it all the time before trying to create my original stories. In actual original works, however, it might be impossible to pinpoint a Sue because, whether you want it or not, an author favors certain characters in a story, especially the heroes. A character who can solve every problem he comes across isn't a Mary Sue, but poor writing.

Maybe they disappear from the map and you're screwed if you didn't do them? Like when you lose items forever if you let thieves run away with them in certain maps. That would be nice to see.

Funny fact, you can beat Chapter 11 while leaving the paralogues alone, then the two-year gap happens and you come back to them. By then, Donny and his ma should've been killed by the ruffians, Victor and Vincent become rich exploring the merchants in northeast Ferox, and the villagers are killed and eaten by the Risen. The idea of paralogues was great, but poorly implemented because they aren't required to beat the story, so these weird discrepancies happen. I think this game should've had, like, 50 chapters, then the storytelling would've been much better.

I think reclassing Frederick is a consensus. I tried Wyvern Rider Frederick and he was such a disappointment. Gains no exp and loses stats.

Of course it has to be the MU from Awakening, because he's supposed to be one. A Mary Sue is first and foremost a self-insert. BTW TVTropes is wrong. Otherwise things like Superman would be considered Mary Sues, and they aren't. I maintain a Mary Sue is a self-insert who gets all he/she wants in the story. Which is why Robin is one. He's the strongest unit in the game (potentially), can marry whoever you want him to and can be whichever class you want him to. That's not to say it isn't fun to play with Robin, but the customization options in Awakening suck IMO.

Is there any other thing about magic in this game I need to know apart from: 1) Wind dealing lowest damage but effective against flying units; 2) Fire being the most balanced; 3) Thunder being the strongest, least accurate and higher chance of critical overall; 4) Dark having funky effects?

I was wary because this is where the hardcore fans of the series gather. But I was well-received so I'm feeling more comfortable.

Can't speak for the others since I've played only Awakening, but about the hierarch... You do have a point. Thing is, should we be expecting such detailed storytelling from a videogame? I believe if the game was only the war between Ylisse and Plegia, these story elements could've been expanded upon. Maybe the real flaw is that the game progresses too fast for its story to be told in reasonable detail?

Well, it's the same reason why music fans cringe when their beloved niche band breaks into the mainstream, and there are quite a few cases of that in history, like when Metallica released their Black Album that was oh so different from their previous ones, more "radio friendly", and therefore bashed by the "hardcore fans", although it is a pretty solid album and one of the best Metallica did, even if radio friendly. With Awakening, IS knew it was their last shot so probably the order at Nintendo was to make something that was more mainstream, and that's exactly what they did, with Casual mode, tropey characters, a self-insert and a simple plot. It is a good game, and plenty of fun, but it's different from older games so the fans of older games (and of the series in general) will nitpick, especially since there are reviews galore from mainstream gaming sites praising the game. My biggest complaint with Awakening is the plot, but I don't think it's bad. It's just "easy" and effortless. From the moment they went with time travel, they were cornered by the flaws of the concept. Time travel was the moment Lost (the series) jumped the shark IMO. When you want to work with time travel, the first thing you must do is to establish the rules of time travel in your world. Back to the Future and Terminator had their rules, Lost had its own. Awakening doesn't make clear to the player which rules they are, it just says that the future can be changed but there are events in the game which imply otherwise, such as Emmeryn still dying despite Lucina's efforts to course-correct the timeline. So it becomes a bit of a mess. It's not a terrible plot, it's just too simple for a game with the magnitude Awakening has. Chapter 7 is not the worst in the game by any means. Emmeryn's actions are incredibly stupid if we look at them with 20/20 hindsight, but she does plausibly justify them. If she fled for her life, the people would've lost their spirits and Ylisstol would basically be Gangrel's for the taking. Take all kings that fled during war in the course of history and none of them ended up well. So Emmeryn actually did the most reasonable thing, it's just that Gangrel's forces were too overwhelming. About Cordelia, I agree she should've been handled better but she IS a side character after all, so it was a given that she wouldn't have been given much of a chance to shine and her story wouldn't have been explained well, unless you support her with your avatar in the game, where there's a bit of character development. And seriously, criticizing it because of the sudden appearance of the hierarch is such a low blow... He's an unimportant character who was there just to reiterate there were traitors in the kingdom (as could be implied by Chapter 6). I'd say Chapter 6 is way worse than Chapter 7, since it basically depicts Phila and her league of pegasus knights as useless since they can't even protect their queen. I personally love the characters, even if they are a bit tropey. Only Tharja gets on my nerves a bit, but she's a good unit so that's passable.

Sorry for stupid question but do you guys manage to go through these classes in a single playthrough or only in the postgame? I figured there's not enough experience to reclass the avatar many times unless you overuse him/her.

Pepsi, I'd say. It's cheaper and sweeter.

I will once I finish my Normal/Classic file. Idea is to have one file for each difficulty (not Lunatic+ because I ain't never doing that).

Abomasnow is a waste, you already have Venusaur and Blaziken as potential Megas and Abomasnow's regular form is unimpressive, so he's useless on your team. And, of course, his ability will hurt more than help. I haven't played the game yet but I don't need to in order to tell you this.

You're definitely right. I'm more geared towards playing for fun and seeing my spectacular units trample the opposition, but I believe I would feel more satisfaction when doing this in a harder mode. The problem is that, it's a thing I've been considering for a while, whether it's worth it for me. I'm a very average gamer myself and, when I first started browsing the internet some 10 years ago, I was very surprised to learn that I actually sucked. So I think that my potential may not be as high as that of the better players. Honing a skill takes time and I was never very fond of self-imposed restrictions, which is why I end up not improving. When you self-impose challenges, you learn to play the game better because you're doing it without facilitators of any kind, but I just like to chill and treat my gaming as a pastime. I've played my fair share of games in the hardest modes and once I finished them, at much cost, for unlockables, I usually went back to easier modes for some relief. Awakening, however, sparked my interest in doing the harder modes because it's harder than your average game. I feel like I shouldn't be having my ass kicked in Hard because Hard is the "middle" difficulty so it's more like the normal mode of the game. So I'll try to improve. One thing's certain, though: I need to finish the damn game before trying something else! Practicing without knowing the missions is a bad thing.

Wow thank you all, I expected harsher responses! Guess I'll just do whatever I feel like then. I accidentally erased my Hard/Classic file, though.

I feel silly for not thinking of that. Thanks for the help. BTW I believe it must be possible to rescue them without Rescue staff, but I haven't figured out how to do that without getting my characters killed.

The fact you're a virgin or not should matter to YOU and YOU only.

I restarted my game so no Cherche birthday for me.

I think Vincent nailed it (Ezio too). Actually I have yet to complete the game, so I'm definitely not sharp enough to be playing on Hard or above... Just for kicks, I tried Chapter 5 on Hard without grinding, and couldn't beat it the way I normally play, so I might have to resort to some cheap strategy to win. I *think* I also got bad level ups with Lissa, because the Rescue staff's range isn't enough to bring Maribelle and Ricken with the MAG my Lissa has. Interestingly enough, Chapter 4, which used to give me a lot of trouble, I beat on my first try. Sumia's RES is quite useful. I do agree that beating stuff without grinding brings a wonderful sense of satisfaction, but I'm the kind of player who likes being safe most of the time, lol. The problem with my playstyle is that I come from Pokémon, where the wild monsters you catch to fill your party are usually way lower level than your main monsters, so I grind the weak monsters to the level of the more powerful ones. I tend to do the same in Awakening whenever I get a new character, because I like variety, but I didn't know it was frowned upon by FE players. My only gripe with grinding in this game is that the Golden DLC is kinda lame. It's a "on your face" kind of thing, like "THIS WAS MADE FOR GRINDING AND GRINDING ALONE!!!!111!".

I'm attempting a Hard/Classic run and I can't fight the urge to fire up EXPonential Growth after I beat Chapter 4. However, I've seen lots of people who beat Hard without grinding at all, which is encouraging me to not use the Golden DLC. But, on the other hand, I'm not skilled enough to use some units which are underleveled at the beginning but prove useful in the long run, such as Miriel and Sumia. So I'm kinda forced to bring them up to speed when I can. A Lv1 Sumia in Chapter 5 is just going to get destroyed, and you need to feed her kills at the beginning, which is not always easy when taking her to the front lines puts her under the risk of being one-shotted by an archer (like in Chapter 3). So instead of focusing on beating the enemy, I'm focusing on babying units, which IMO isn't ideal. Speaking of Lunatic mode instead, I heard grinding is a must if you don't want to solo the game with MU, which is an eye opener. The idea of a grinding DLC is appealing to me but I kinda wish it was replaced by better implementation of skirmishes. Skirmishes are limited for the day and may sometimes come with units that are harder than the story units in the chapter you're at, so it's not always viable to use them to grind (especially in Lunatic). And, of course, the Reeking Boxes cost 4800G in Hard and above, which means they're too expensive unless you use GG. How do you view grinding in a game like this? I know it's supposed to be a strategy game where brains are more important than levels, but there are those people like me who enjoy having access to powerful units after a grinding session. But I feel bad about grinding when the game is beatable without grinding... You can say it's a matter of insecurity on my part.

The Galeforce thing is why I think permadeath should've been applied only to story mode and certain DLC.

Thanks Rey. ^^ I guess I'm the kind who prefers to experiment on Normal, because Lunatic sounds quite stressful. I watched a few videos of it, including yours (avidly, might I say ;) ), and it sounds quite BS level sometimes, lol.

I'm from Brazil.

Finally found this thread. The first question may sound a bit silly, but here goes: how do I improve at the game? Practice definitely makes perfect, and I guess I shouldn't be tackling Hard/Classic as early as I am... Because Awakening is my first experience with this kind of game. Then again Normal/Classic is a bit boring sometimes because it starts relatively easy and it only becomes easier. I hate myself so much, I make silly mistakes all the time. Reminds me of when I played chess. Second question... Why does Gaius have so low dodging rates? He's a Thief FFS! It seemed like Lon'qu outclasses him at everything apart from opening locks. Gaius is speedy and strong when promoted, but he's a bit on the frail side and doesn't avoid hits as often as I want. Third question... Is it worth it for me to optimize pairings? I live in a place where almost no one has both a 3DS and the game (I couldn't find it on the stores so I had to buy the game from an importer), so StreetPass is useless. I guess for DLC chapters it would be useful, or for the satisfaction of seeing uber units walk over everything in my file...