Which of these is more Difficult?

[Charpig]

I have been wondering about this for a while now, so I'll just make a topic. Which is more difficult, Shadow Dragon H5 or Thracia 776? I have never played Thracia 776 but I hear that it is the most difficult Fire Emblem of all time. I have, however, played Shadow Dragon H5, which is most likely the most difficult challenge for North American gamers without using imports or emulators. I'd like to hear from people who have played both, and please give your reasoning.

I already know that FE12 Lunatic is more difficult than FE11 H5, I don't need talk of that in this topic. I am asking for comparisons of FE11 H5 to FE5, not to anything else.

[Just call me AL]

There was a difficulty comparison topic on here before it got lost. It's still here, but I don't know if it will answer your question or not.

[Thor Odinson]

Here's the topic:

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19365&hl=difficulty&st=0

I personally think H5 is actually easier than FE5, IMO, since at least you can just use free bait in SD in the name of Gaidens, whereas I hate having anyone die in other FES. And I beat H5 whereas is kinda stuck on FE5 and should start over. But that's just me.

[Junkhead]

H5, easily.

FE5's difficulty is overrated.

[Scarlet]

FE11's H5 mode is pretty difficult unless you warp-skip half the game. However, if you don't care about your units' survival, you can just use cannon fodder a lot, I guess.

FE5, on the other hand, isn't all that difficult by itself, but you need to know some tricks, or else you'll get stomped by many of the nasty surprises that game has. And FE5 doesn't give you immortal war gods to use. Even freaking Holsety!Sety can die quite easily if you overestimate yourself. And some chapters in FE5 are borderline impossible if you don't warp-skip them.

FE5 is a lot easier than FE11's H5 mode if you already know all the tricks, but if you're playing it for the first time, it might easily outclass FE11. FE11's difficulty, on the other hand, remains fairly constant even if you know what's to come.

[Integrity]

I didn't find cannon foddering to help in very many situations in H5. I had to contrive reasons to kill off units so I could get Etzel.

Never played FE5. Gotta finish 4 first.

[Mousefire]

on a no savestate run, I was able to get pretty far in fe5. I can't past the first few chapters in H5. Stupid bosses...

So, yeah, H5 mode for me.

[Rewjeo]

I played FE5. I found it not very challenging. FE5 throws you into weird situations (no money at start, losing units, capturing, escaping through guards, fleeing armies, etc.) while H5 just tosses stupidly strong enemies at you.

[Thor Odinson]

FE5's gameplay system is pretty different from the most FEs, though, especially those released in North America.

H5 isn't too bad once you get Sedgar and/or Wolf trained. Just throw them out there as tink bait and watch as the stupidly strong enemies bounce off their 30 DEF. Since they probably won't double as Generals they can weaken, and let the faster units take the kill.

It's still standard gameplay, just the enemies are ridiculously stronger.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

I played FE5. I found it not very challenging. FE5 throws you into weird situations (no money at start, losing units, capturing, escaping through guards, fleeing armies, etc.) while H5 just tosses stupidly strong enemies at you.

Then they toss stupidly strong prepromotes for you that make the lategame look like a joke. Hell it doesn't even have to be Sedgar or Wolf as General, several people that can reclass to Knight can be trained to the point where they'll have enough to DEF to take no damage once Brave weapons come in. It's RD Hard mode all over again, the lategame being easier IIRC.

I'm not gonna say which is harder, just that I agree with what Raymond said. FESD gives you those generic units if your own die and you can manipulate the situation to end up with promoted generic units quite early which may even help make things easier than if you used the regulars. To add more, there's forging and too much money available that you can forge a couple weapons for your units to use for OHKOing common enemies.

In FE5, your mistakes are (for the most part) there to stay. If you unit dies, it won't come back and you won't get a generic unit to replace it and if your unit's been captured, you'll only be able to get them back really late in the game where they're likely useless except for Saphy due to her Staff rank and whatever unit you allowed to get captured shortly before ending a chapter for whatever reason.

But yeah, if you know FE5, it's easy. Knowledge is literally "power" in FE5 as good planing can turn certain low tier units into war gods and make seemingly difficult situations easy.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Sirius

[dondon151]

But yeah, if you know FE5, it's easy. Knowledge is literally "power" in FE5 as good planing can turn certain low tier units into war gods and make seemingly difficult situations easy.

Well, it's the same thing for FEDS H5, isn't it? FE5 has broken personal weapons, broken skills and mechanics, and Warp + Repair. FEDS has broken forging mechanics, accessible effective weapons, and Warp + Hammerne. The quality of the enemies actually hardly matters when you have enough knowledge to ignore probably 80% of them.

[Anouleth]

Then they toss stupidly strong prepromotes for you that make the lategame look like a joke. Hell it doesn't even have to be Sedgar or Wolf as General, several people that can reclass to Knight can be trained to the point where they'll have enough to DEF to take no damage once Brave weapons come in. It's RD Hard mode all over again, the lategame being easier IIRC.

Slow, defensive strategies have always been powerful in FE. And of course if you use growth units like Wolf and Sedgar, the lategame will end up easy.

I'm not gonna say which is harder, just that I agree with what Raymond said. FESD gives you those generic units if your own die and you can manipulate the situation to end up with promoted generic units quite early which may even help make things easier than if you used the regulars. To add more, there's forging and too much money available that you can forge a couple weapons for your units to use for OHKOing common enemies.

There is nothing good about generic units. 0 luck means that any enemy can easily OHKO them, they have poor weapon ranks, and no PRFs.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Slowking

[Charpig]

Would it be right to say that Thracia 776 is much more luck based than Shadow Dragon? I've seen quite a few videos on YouTube where the player missed consecutive times with a 99% chance to hit. And in Thracia you can't even have a 100% chance to hit. Yes, I know that PEMN but no matter how good your strategy is, it will fall through if the RNG decides to take a dump on you. On the other hand, in Shadow Dragon the hit rates of both you and your enemies tend to be quite high, it's not too difficult to get a 100% Hit especially with forged weapons. Shadow Dragon doesn't have any major "dodge tanks," tanking is about concrete durability instead.

I'll make very simple conclusions, from what has been said:

Thracia's difficulty seems to be of a strategic nature, you have to know the game. You can't simply overpower your enemies.

Shadow Dragon's H5 difficulty is from facing very strong enemies from the very beginning. The AI in Shadow Dragon is not particularly smart, however.

[Sophius]

It's difficult to make a comparison considering that they off completely different kinds of difficulty. FE5 puts the player in a variety of unique situations, causing the player to constantly change strategies. And, because of the 20 stat cap, your units generally are not to much stronger than the enemies, unlike in most FE games. Whearas H5, is pretty much maneuvering your characters to bait enemies and crossing your fingers. In H5, you generally use Jeigan to weaken enemies and finish them off with units you will train, and abusing wolf/Sedgar. Meaning you are attempting to raise a few strong units that can hold up against the enemies. However in Thracia 776, you have to use many characters due to fatigue. Also selecting characters isn't as simple as "what are their stats and weapon types?". You have to look at all of a character's attributes in order to properly assert a quotient of usefulness.

Objectively, I would say that Thracia 776 is harder. However for me H5 is more difficult. This is because I find Thracia 776 to be more fun than H5, therefore providing a greater incentive to play Thracia.

[Thor Odinson]

There's also the WIFI shop option for H5, for those that play on cartridge (most people, since it's been localized).

If you somehow had the money, you could get braves for your whole team. But unless you play like me and have a team of Pallies, Generals, Mages, and nothing else, it should be enough.

Though Thracia does have free weapons capture, most enemies only has generic weapons.

Except Master weapons. Those are pretty delicious.

[Paperblade]

You can call fake difficulty in Thracia 776 all you want.

That doesn't change the fact that everything after Chapter 5 in H5 is no difficulty.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Well, it's the same thing for FEDS H5, isn't it? FE5 has broken personal weapons, broken skills and mechanics, and Warp + Repair. FEDS has broken forging mechanics, accessible effective weapons, and Warp + Hammerne. The quality of the enemies actually hardly matters when you have enough knowledge to ignore probably 80% of them.

Well yes though I was mostly referring to how scrolls can affect units there.

There is nothing good about generic units.

What isn't good about having an entire team of promoted units around chapter 6? Hell, it's possible to pull it off earlier depending on how much you level up Marth and what units you're keeping. If you're so attached to unpromoted units then of course you won't see strong prepromoted generics early on, which is btw the hardest part in the game much like every other FE.

Sure, they won't be as great as say, a team of the high tier unit appropriately leveled up for the lategame but by then you'll have plenty of resources to work with and unless you're trying to do a playthrough where you stick with the first generics you get, there'll be little to no concern about any of them dying and you're basically losing nothing as you got them at random with absolutely no effort put into them.

0 luck means that any enemy can easily OHKO them

Generals. While testing shit around in Normal Mode, I've gotten 25 DEF generals as early as chapter 5 and I don't recall generic unit appearance being different in H5. A critical doesn't mean a damn if no damage is received and if Marth is leveling, then you want those generics to die to be replaced by ones of higher level and more base WEXP on them.

they have poor weapon ranks, and no PRFs.

Are you making a party that's a mixture of unpromoted characters + Marth? If so, of course you're bound to get low weapon ranks, it's the wrong way of using generic units. Lack of PRFs is granted. If you want those and some decent generics, just overfeed kills Shiida (perhaps even early promote her to increase the average level of your party) and Marth and keep the prepromote characters you get alive for a while to get score better generics.

With no need for Master Seals, you can just sell those off to add even more funds and more forged Ridersbane to make the lategame easy.

tl;dr, a playthrough where you don't give a damn about who dies and is being played just to beat it is easier than a playthrough your typical Fire Emblem player has become obsessed with: Keeping all units alive.

Edited August 5, 2010 by Sirius

[Charpig]

tl;dr, a playthrough where you don't give a damn about who dies and is being played just to beat it is easier than a playthrough your typical Fire Emblem player has become obsessed with: Keeping all units alive.

Shadow Dragon even encourages you to kill off units to get to the gaiden chapters, which are piss easy even on H5. 17x even gives you another Warp staff. The only time Thracia encourages you to kill off a unit is killing Olwen in order to recruit Eyrios, or maybe let a unit get captured if you want to go to the detention center chapter. Believe me, a lot of Fire Emblem players were riled at SD's sidequest requirements. I also didn't like the idea, but it is nice to not have the burden of keeping every unit alive if there's really no point to.

[H3X/AntiStyle]

Wait... People are comparing FE5 to HM5?

Wierd. I could actually manage FE5. And I don't totally see what's so different about FE5. FE4 was about 10 times more radical if you ask me. (WTF do you mean only 3 of my units could ever double regardless of speed? Fuck these skills!)

HM5 though... Fuck, I was terrified of the first level. Hell, of the level 1 thief. If that guy could take two cavaliers attacking him and still be standing, fuck this shit.

But this is coming from a guy who only got to Ch 16 in FE5 and never beat Ch1 of HM5.

[Anouleth]

Wait... People are comparing FE5 to HM5?

Wierd. I could actually manage FE5. And I don't totally see what's so different about FE5. FE4 was about 10 times more radical if you ask me. (WTF do you mean only 3 of my units could ever double regardless of speed? Fuck these skills!)

HM5 though... Fuck, I was terrified of the first level. Hell, of the level 1 thief. If that guy could take two cavaliers attacking him and still be standing, fuck this shit.

But this is coming from a guy who only got to Ch 16 in FE5 and never beat Ch1 of HM5.

Only the earlygame of HM5 is really painful. The rest can pretty much be steamrolled with Knights/Generals.

[Integrity]

Only the earlygame of HM5 is really painful. The rest can pretty much be steamrolled with Knights/Generals.

Pretty much true, and you don't even always need Generals.

My run of it was:

10 or 12 chapters of mind-numbing, plan-everything-twice tedium. Make it to a save? AWESOME.

12 chapters of Barst stomping everything in sight regardless of class or weapon.

two chapters I warpskipped because I was bored

and the final, which was just long but not especially hard.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

FE5 is harder, IMO. Shiida and Sedgar trivialize FE11 H5.

But yeah, if you know FE5, it's easy.

The same can be said for all FE games.

good planing can turn certain low tier units into war gods

Fuck yeah Ronan/Marty.

[Junkhead]

Here's the topic:

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19365&hl=difficulty&st=0

I see this list is pretty exagerated on FE9 MM. MM is really easy when you have Titania who is basically needed if you don't want to take over 9000 turns earlygame. And once you get BEXP, pfft.

[Thor Odinson]

Well, it's old enough that it's been locked, at any rate.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

I see this list is pretty exagerated on FE9 MM. MM is really easy when you have Titania who is basically needed if you don't want to take over 9000 turns earlygame. And once you get BEXP, pfft.

I'd rank FE5 higher than MM. Although I can't decide whether H5 or PoR MM is harder. FE12 Lunatic without Reverse mode can be above FE5 for now and FE12 Lunatic Reverse mode can be on top of the list.