Which of the Tellius games do you like the best?!

[Florete]

Like, nothing in PoR really compared to the nonsensicalness of Lethe being as weak as a low level second tier units while being treated as a third tier unit for exp calculation or skills that deal 200 points despite there being no enemy that even comes close to possibly surviving it even before having an additional effect attached to it.

This is one minor point that you are overblowing.

Which is really all I wanted to say. I have absolutely no idea why I spend so much time writing so much text, while actually leaving out the part that was actually important, in order to contest a trivial detail about a statement that isn't in any way worth arguing over, as a result wasting the time of somebody who just so happens to be a moderator which naturally might have significant negative results for me in the future.

So, I am sorry that I wasted your time with this, Red Fox.

You're, uh, taking this a little too seriously. I don't think any less of you for this, or something like that.

I responded anyway, but if you don't want to continue, don't feel the need to.

I'm sorry. That came out wrong.

I mean, all the units that are next to unfixable. Like Fiona, who not only takes an inhumanly effort to raise but there is no point in it because every map handicaps her. Or Tormod, who comes mercilessly underleveled with only average growths and an awful class. Which reminds me, it's kinda funny how Tormod gets updated equipment in that chapter, but IS couldn't bother to auto-level him a bit.

This is only really the case on Hard mode, where such differences are most likely intentional. Fiona is a bit of an outlier but still reasonable enough to train in easy/normal and can be really good by part 4 (payoff). Tormod is weird, I think IS forgot about his crew while making the game and had to throw him somewhere that wasn't done yet.

I dare to say that she is very unique. Sure, there are other weak units but even the likes of Wendy or Sophia will at least get experience for a kill. Lethe doesn't. She only gets 1 exp for each kill as if she was highly overleveld. And yet she is as weak as Nephenee, except she doesn't have to worry about a gauge. I'm sorry, but that makes no sense.

Even in Hard she doesn't get just 1 exp, and she definitely gets more in easy/normal. I don't know what you're remembering. Besides, Laguz get more help from Strike than levels anyway, so Lethe really just needs to attack a lot and get the occasional point of Speed to keep herself doubling.

Arguable. First of, only Roar is useless. Pretty much everything else just has the trouble that they are outdamaged by a mere Adept skill. But considering said skill can only taught ones, they still have their use for everyone with the needed capacity.

In general, they feel a lot less messy then the RD ones.

Any mastery that doesn't kill or heal in PoR is useless because it's too easy to ORKO basically everything anyway. Masteries that stun are worse than useless because it means you'll waste time not being able to kill the enemy on enemy phase.

Except that it kinda defeats the point of using it on units in need of training. The ones that start at lower level but are intended to make up for it with good growths.

And while the PoR system could be abused by save scumming, Radiant Dawn evens it out by adding battle saves which do the same thing during the chapter.

I'm not even talking about resetting. I'm talking about this, as well as the fact that in random mode you can save BEXP by feeding in increments.

Growth units still work better with BEXP in RD. Their immediate performance improves and any possible loss usually doesn't make a difference in the long run unless you pump them from 1 to 20.

And in exchange to that, they get no exp, despite often being weak. And cats don't even get player phase since they have to eat grass.

While the Laguz in PoR are universally decent fighters. The only thing that feels awkward there, is the lack of Laguz stones.

1. They don't get as little exp as you think, especially in easy/normal.

2. Plenty of RD Laguz are good, not even counting the royals and Giffca. Volug is one of the best characters in the game. Then there's Ulki, Janaff, Mordecai, Muarim (part 1), Ranulf. It's really no different from the amount of good and bad beorc units. Andthe Laguz in PoR are not universally good, anyway. Janaff and Ulki are both bad, Lethe and Mordecai lose their combat power later on, and except for Lethe and Janaff, they all in general need to rely on the Demi Band to fight consistently, which makes them lose bonuses. And there's only one of it.

Personally I disagree but If you really think so, then you can't really complain that the PoR Bexp system can be cheated by saving and loading. Also, Radiant Dawn isn't harder. They just renamed the difficulties and removed Maniac from PoR during localization.

As mentioned above, BEXP abuse is not about resetting.

Maniac isn't entirely relevant, but I'd stand by RD's hard being harder anyway. RD's difficulties are easily harder than the PoR equivalents, but it also has a greater variation in difficulty since the difficulties actually accurately describe them. PoR's easy and normal are both basically easy, hard is kind of a middle ground between normal and hard, and maniac is hard.

-Magic has no power and enemies have tons of resistance, negating any advantage they would have by targeting RES, while every other stat they have is inferior as usual. And they are the ones who also have the bad masteries.

I'll agree that magic is underpowered compared to previous games, but not as much as you think. Enemies do not have "tons" of resistance, and your magic units tend to be good at capping and using BEXP (Soren especially). Thing is, this game treats them more as ranged fighters, like Archers, whereas in previous games they could often go off by themselves, which isn't what the class is meant for anyway.

-The game often treats Laguz as overleveled despite them being weak.

Covered.

-The playable dragons are complete pushovers. Ena in particular has trouble to even scratch enemies. And they don't actually have strike levels.

The game's got some weak characters. Alright. Have you seen PoR Ena? Lucia? Bastian? They all suck too.

At least RD Ena can make herself useful with Blood Tide.

-The Mercs are absurdly overpowered.

Only in comparison to DB.

-There are tons of units with Leadership but only few of them every lead an army.

-Btw, you can't possibly justify this, saying that they represent their theoretical leadership in case they were leaders. Because if that's what it represents, then where are the Leadership stars of Tanith, Sigrun and Micaiah?

This isn't a balance problem, just something...not used? Take away the stars and nothing changes.

-Battle conversations between PCs are nearly impossible to archive unless you devote your whole strategy towards it.

Huh? What does this have to do with game balance?

-4E is a rout map, which requires you to kill an defenseless old man as a result. It's hardly intended that way, considering that there is an unused script for sparing him.

Huh? again.

The only reason that there is no unit who dominates half the game is because no unit is even playable for that long. While playable, units like Haar and Ike will kill and destroy anything in their sight.

And while this might not work on hard mode, remember that the hardest difficulty was removed from PoR.

Exactly. But even Haar and Ike can't run around forever, especially in hard mode; they need some help to keep up. Ike in particular, since he's a sword-locked foot unit. Haar is, indeed, the worst case of a dominating unit, but he can easily have Spd problems.

The only reason that his doesn't happen in Radiant Dawn, is because no unit is even around for half the game. By the time they are, Ike, Haar, Gatrie and Shinon do a good job at completely obliterating everything while being essentially invincible.

That might not be the case in hard mode, but again: PoR merely got it's highest difficulty removed during localization. No idea how Titania would perform there. And of course, nobody dominates the Dawn Brigade chapter because again they are so underpowered that even the strongest are merely average. And the advantage of mounts doesn't really matter since turns are a infinite resource. Also, Rolf's situation isn't anywhere as insane as the ones from Meg, Fiona and Lyre. He has potential to catch up with everyone and plenty of time to do so.

Where GM has Ike, Haar, Gatrie, and Shinon, part 1 DB has Sothe, Nolan, Volug, Tauroneo, Tormod, Muarim, Nailah. And even Micaiah for strong backseat hits.

Meg can actually catch up easily enough. Fiona and Lyre are tougher but still end up better in their game than Rolf in PoR.

And the advantage of mounts doesn't really matter since turns are a infinite resource

No. If you're going to talk balance, you need to understand what makes a unit good.

Also, PoR does show activated skills. And unlike Radiant Dawn, it even shows the stat growth of Resolve.

It just has a flash of light. RD tells you what activated. The Revolve thing is likely because the JP version didn't have Resolve trigger every time.

[gster50]

I like 9 the best. 10 has a lot of things I don't like: The dawn brigade is practically unusable because of how little time you get with them, there are no true support conversations, the laguz royals are so overpowered you could start at final chapter and still beat the game. The Black Knight was way cooler in 9, because he was actually hard to beat as opposed to 10, where he can be 1 rounded. Also I did not like Zelgius as the Black Knight. Too many enemies had Nihil in final chapter, I'd rather have seen skills that were watered down, but could activate in important fights. Also I thought 9 had a much better soundtrack. This might just be me, but I liked the animations in 9 better too. The only thing 10 did better than 9, was incorporating more characters, (like Dheginsea, and leanne) and making the game harder, because 9 was definitely too easier, and incorporating an S rank weapon for all weapons. But all things considered I just liked the feel of 9 more. Also the skipping around gets on my nerves, espescially when you skip from Ike to the Dawn Brigade, who still suck as much as the last time you used them, even though enemies have gotten stronger.

Edited February 28, 2013 by gster50

[Constable Reggie]

Even in Hard she doesn't get just 1 exp, and she definitely gets more in easy/normal. I don't know what you're remembering. Besides, Laguz get more help from Strike than levels anyway, so Lethe really just needs to attack a lot and get the occasional point of Speed to keep herself doubling.

Actually, this pretty much is the case for Lethe, after just finishing a laguz only run on RD. Mordecai was getting 2-3 exp, which isn't much better. When Lyre and Kysha joined they weren't doing much better either expwise. And I was playing on normal mode. Basically laguz benefit from only weapon leveling, and not exp (they're probably much worse on hard where you can't just bexp them to 99 every chapter, though). They're not terrible or anything, it just doesn't feel nearly as satisfying using them than it would a beorc.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Hejiru]

They both have great stories, but I'd have to say RD has the better one. As for gameplay, I like the way RD's class system is set up better but I dislike having to constantly switch characters all the time. I like it better when you have one party from start to finish.

[forte]

i have to go with PoR, it was my first and it had really good characters in it, the story was interesting. I fanned over getting RD but i found the story severely worse than PoR, it did really well with the automatic masterskill gains I think, RD had better features but i hate the story and the constant switching of units and having to face people you just were, but thats just me. PoR for my vote

[bottlegnomes]

PoR. It is my favorite game <_<

Anyway, RD has probably the best gameplay in any given chapter, but, and I know it's been discussed, has some balance issues, not that PoR doesn't. RD's are just more noticeable IMO. But PoR has the best story in the series, and its gameplay is hardly bad.

RD gameplay > PoR gameplay (Neither are bad)

RD art style > PoR art style

PoR art > RD art

PoR story > RD story (RD had some really cool ideas, but also some serious issues. PoR is pretty much just excellent. Also, I'm sick of hearing about it being cliched, but I probably shouldn't complain.)

PoR overall > RD overall

[Rapier]

I really like both games, they're in my top 5 FEs. Making a choice is hard for me, so let me put it together...

I prefer Radiant Dawn's gameplay. The battles are shortened by a fair amount, and I won't be losing 2 hours for playing a single chapter anymore (yes, I'm slow). I also like the third tier promotions, even if they're extremely OPed. I think it's a well balanced game, as most characters can be trained properly and become great, even those that hardly appear in the game, like Edward, Nephenee, Brom, Marcia, Jill, Nolan, Kieran, Astrid and perhaps even Meg and Makalov.

In PoR, Gatrie and Shinon are almost unusable, Titania breaks the game from the start, Jill and Marcia conquer the game and Laguz are hard to use since they transform automatically and lose their transformations rather quickly. Fortunately, RD fixes all these issues by adding Laguz Stones and Olivi Grasses to smoke, and the groups system allows the player to use lots of units without having to leave them warm the bench.

Last, but not least, I think PoR is extremely easy while RD is actually a challenge.

I prefer Radiant Dawn's art too, it's much more detailed and sharpened. The graphics are a given, as the GC is an older console. But I still found it nice that they kept battle scenes quick and short even with the better graphics.

Same thing about the music. PoR had nice tracks, such as The Enemy Draws Near (Lord!Ike's Enemy Phase battle theme), Decisive Attack (Lord!Ike's Player Phase battle theme), Change of Scenery (Oliver chapters' map theme), Crimea Attacks (Lord!Ike's chapter map theme), the Black Knight's theme, A Mighty Foe.... But it also had some annoying tracks too, such as the first battle themes, and some music were rather unimpressive to me.

I like RD more because I think there are better tracks, and none feel too repetitive or annoying. Besides, Time of Action (Apostle's Army battle theme), the GMs battle theme, Finale in Fear (Ike/Micaiah's battle themes), Eternal Bond (considered to be Ike's theme), Ascent (4-F map theme), Conviction and Road of Sorrow, among others, are simply amazing.

I think PoR's story is much better than RD, because they failed its execution in the later, while they did a superb job in the former. The characters lost a lot of their personality too with the lack of supports, even though we already know a lot about them from PoR (because it managed to develop their characters well).

TL;DR version: I prefer Radiant Dawn.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Rapier

[Mr. Haar]

Fe9 was much simpler and easier than fe10 in both gameplay and its story. I love how RD wraps up everything in the continent so perfectly. I also like how the events of RD make the events of PoR seem like a schoolyard tussle.

[BerserkStaff]

Path of Radiance because it had a much better story than Radiant Dawn and some of the best character development in the series and some good plot twists. Greil dying really pulled me into the story, the Black Knight and his badassness, Nasir turning traitor but still being good, being the first fire emblem to have 3D graphics and battle animation which is a huge improvement, and one of the best support systems ever. PATH OF RADIANCEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Newton]

FE10, because third tier, skill system, more weapon categories and more chapters.

However, FE9 has support conversations and better portraits IMO.

[shadykid]

if anything, the imbalance of the GMs in FE10 is just a reason to dock points from Path of Radiance

FE10 it is

[Silver Lightning]

Path of Radiance for story, Radiant Dawn for gameplay.

I voted Radiant Dawn since I find myself playing that more often.

[Rainbow Skittles]

FE9

because of story

[Vestige]

FE9 because story. It's pretty much a classic to me. RD was good but it wasn't great. I honestly didn't care much for the Dawn Brigade -shrug-. Oh well.

Plus the lack of supports was kind of...saddening. :p

[LuxSpes]

I prefer Radiant Dawn, but I think it's mainly because it's the first FE game I've ever played. Thus, I already knew a lot of PoR's story and the limited gameplay options PoR offered in comparison to RD makes me replay the latest more often.

I really liked the 3rd promotions and all the mastery skills. Made most of the characters look a terror on the battlefield.

[Koenig]

My favorite of the two would have to be Path of Radiance. The story felt more coherent, the characters more developed, and game play more refined when compared to its sequel. Not to mention Ike was completely over powered which is something I enjoyed messing with.

[NinjaMonkey]

Not to mention Ike was completely overpowered which is something I enjoyed messing with.

He's even more overpowered in Radiant Dawn.

and game play more refined when compared to its sequel.

Are you high or something? I think you'll find the that the general consensus is that the opposite is true.

Edited January 10, 2014 by NinjaMonkey

[Koenig]

He's even more overpowered in Radiant Dawn.

Are you high or something? I think you'll find the that the general consensus is that the opposite is true.

Radiant dawn may have had more mechanics, but refined they were not. Path of Radiance felt much more polished in comparison.

[NinjaMonkey]

RD has the exact same mechanics as PoR, save for the ledge mechanic.

[Koenig]

RD has the exact same mechanics as PoR, save for the ledge mechanic.

Splitting and changing what characters you can play as in several chapters is a kind of mechanic, as it affects how you distribute resources and command your troops; likewise the rock-paper-scissor aspect of the game was greatly increased, which made some units nearly ineffective in certain battles. Similarly the addition of dark magic affected the magic triangle. Some of these additions improved the game, but I honestly felt that they could have been balanced and polished much more than they were. By comparison Path of Radiance was far more balanced within its own context and, in my opinion, better for it. It is a case of doing more with less.

[Junkhead]

I thought there was something wrong with the date this topic was made on. Then I remembered this isn't 2013, anymore.

Anyway, I prefer FE10. I actually tend to prefer a good story over great gameplay, but this time, I prefer FE10's neat gameplay over FE9. FE9's story is nice, and it has well-written supports. But it's difficulty (at least regarding the American/European versions) is lacking...MM is quite fun and moderately challenging. Like I said, I like FE10 for it's nice gameplay, long game-duration and rather unique story.

Also because Sanaki is very beautiful in this one.

[Stargirl]

FE 10 is my preferred game. Mostly because of gameplay.

I also enjoyed seeing the return of some of my favourite FE 9 characters. Ikkkkkkkke

[Jotari]

9 just felt way too standard for me. 10 might have multiple failings but I can really respect what it was trying to do and in spite of everything it still is a really fun game that is worth replaying several times (plus automatic overkill mastery skills are sweet).

[Nobody]

Path of Radiance without a doubt

Radiant Dawn is by far my least favorite fire emblem game.

[bottlegnomes]

One thing I don't really get is how people can say that RD is unarguably better balanced than PoR. Balance is the lack of a dominant strategy. Both games have pretty clear dominant strategies; RD just makes you use more characters for it, and that's not so much a result of better balance but dumping OP characters on you who pretty much make your old characters pointless. For the most part, RD's strategies are more restrictive, since, until part 4, you have a very limited number of characters to work with. I'll opt for PoR's type of balance any day.

Edited April 14, 2014 by bottlegnomes