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What makes a good chapter?


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Long, interesting, challenging, plot-significant. Preferably forces my units into groups and/or is a defence mission that actually requires a competent defence. Good music.

...And shouldn't pop up too often. They'd be cheapened if every map was like these.

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Really large maps with lots of enemies, between medium and hard in difficulty. I like varied terrain, and lots of deployment slots.

Also a lot of stirrings is always good, and conversations in the battle are nice too.

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What makes a good chapter: script before and after the fighting map to explain why the characters are there and furthering the story. Also, the story has to make sense, not just have a lame excuse to fight.

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My favorite chapters are those that stand out from the rest, not just your normal march from point A to point B map. It's good to mix up the action every now and then, or else you would end up doing the same thing every single chapter, which gets boring really fast.

Plot importance helps as well, as it changes some annoying mechanics (Fog of war, FE7's water temple,) into challenges that need to be overcome to take down that smarmy, evil boss.

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Something that's reasonably challenging. It's fine to make the player think, making them pray to the RNG is annoying though. FE5's ballistae were nasty, especially when you could only reach them with fliers. I've reset a fantastic number of times on those chapters. A good design is also nice, a map which makes sense plotwise gives a sense of atmosphere. FE3 was slightly guilty, sending you to capture a castle for the sake of it.

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My favorite chapters are those that stand out from the rest, not just your normal march from point A to point B map. It's good to mix up the action every now and then, or else you would end up doing the same thing every single chapter, which gets boring really fast.

I disagree, I hate when maps try to be 'cute', it just ends up annoying me. Like the arrows in FE6, Chapter 16x and their tendency to kill characters randomly, or the stealth mission in FE9.

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I actually like rout chapters. I love killing all the enemies to get the experience for my dudes. I like having the enemy lines having a multitude of different units so i can make full use of my team. Its no fun for me if every other guy is using a lance and my swordie or myrm has trouble landing a blow. I also like maps with treasure on them. My favorite maps in FE are Cog Of Destiny in FE7 and 4-4 in RD. Cog of Destiny has a lot of different baddies on it and its a rout chapter. I can have my team rather varied and still clear it and have a good time doing so. 4-4 is just awesome. Its kind of a nostalgia level (cuz its so similar to that one level in PoR) and its got a lot of treasure to nab, different baddies, terrain differences, and a recruitable boss!

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Creativity. Make the player do stuff that's out of the ordinary, but not too weird. Like in FE6, pretty much every chapter ended with seizure, and that gets pretty boring. But, terrain layout and enemies and stuff can force the player to do different things each chapter, so they stay entertained. Also, there's really crazy stuff like the priest-shoving chapter in FE9, the three- or four-person chapter in Hector mode, and stuff like that. Those are fun.

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I hate it when chapters try to be 'cute' and be interesting. Like that stealth mission in FE9, or the Gaidens in FE6 (yay for Arrows unpredictably killing units).

What I do like is when a chapter has little room for error, in the sense that a mistake in your strategy can hold you back a turn. A good example of this is 2-E, where I had to use a very precise strategy in order to get the Energy Drop, the Dracoshield and Nullify all within three turns and kill Ludveck.

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mostly all of the above

though the thing I like the most is to have green/yellow units run around the map. (or simply said, to have a third team run around)

this is also why I like the berserk staff, it's like having a third team run around being enemy for both enemy and ally (which is even more awesome)

I think they should introduce the purple team, a team that is enemy for both blue and red teams

...oops, sorry, I guess that was off topic, carry on... >.<

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I think they should introduce the purple team, a team that is enemy for both blue and red teams

Already happened; there's a group of neutral Dragon Riders in FE5, Chapter 14 that will attack both the player and enemy.

FE5 really did have the best maps overall. Unique, but without being boring.

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Already happened; there's a group of neutral Dragon Riders in FE5, Chapter 14 that will attack both the player and enemy.

FE5 really did have the best maps overall. Unique, but without being boring.

Agreed, but Fire Emblem 7 HHM is a close second. Brimming with uniqueness and challenge, just like Thracia's map design. Living Legend, for example, is a FoW desert map; if that wasn't enough, you'll have to ferry thieves around the archer-laden desert to collect valuable items. It's also the only chapter I know of where you literally protect the enemies from an NPC. Crazed Beast is a three-pronged attack, which I guess you could argue FE4 did first, but it's different with ginormous maps. Pirate Ship is probably the best at-sea level in the series, forcing the player to choose between a conservative, survivalist approach and a rush to the boss to steal his item. Battle before Dawn is an insane physic-spamming, paladin-rushing, Ursula-surviving rescue mission, complete with FoW and thieves trying to steal your shit. And I don't need to go into detail about how epic HHM Cog of Destiny is, do I?

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I strongly disagree. Chapter 18 is a full out Marcus bumrush. Chapter 23 is just annoying to do in general, and protecting enemies from Pent is not a requirement (no one would ever do that in efficient play). Chapter 25 is unique in principle but very poorly executed considering how laughably easy it is. Chapter 28 is absolutely stupid with its likelihood of failure that the player has absolutely no control over - I'm not just talking about Jaffar randomly dying to Swordreaver fighters and mages, I'm also referring to the fact that if Jaffar goes in the wrong direction, Zephiel will die before the player can help him. Chapter 29 is a generic rout map with some nearly unavoidable status staves thrown in.

You didn't mention what I thought were the best map concepts in FE7, chapters 23x and 28x. Granted, everyone finds chapter 23x to be annoying for some reason and 28x is trivialized by fliers.

FE3 DS has some great map design as far as seize maps go, although that's probably more of a consequence of Marth being the only person able to visit villages than anything else. The timing of reinforcements and the locations of enemy formations are pretty well executed, though.

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