I FINALLY own this game! (post of a newbie)

[bookwormbabe29]

Nearly three years late to the party, but I finally am able to start this game. I'm actually nervous/excited/giddy to play this. I've tried to avoid spoilers, but for better or for worse it's been impossible to avoid everything. Like I know nothing of the plot, but I've heard (possible but unlikely spoiler?) there is apparently wacky time travel wackiness with future offspring, or something to that effect. I've played Genealogy enough to know pairings can be huge there, and can't wait to see how this game uses that system. I mean, time travel and fire emblem! I almost want to name my avatar "Doc" you know? I can do that as I get to name my avatar!!

Anywho, I'm going to give this a whirl. I only have a million or two questions in my head, from DLC to what decisions ruin everything forever, because I don't know and it's so exciting I feel like I could BURST. I'll likely be back here asking some of those questions later, but for now, I just wanted to share the happiness of a fire emblem fan girl finally getting this game.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Go ahead, name your Avatar Doc.

The only decisions that can ruin a first playthrough are not doing what you want and taking optimization and whatnot too seriously. There are subsequent playthroughs for that, so get the full experience from your first one.

[JayTheKing]

Play it on normal and do whateeever you want.Assets and flaws dont matter on normal.Just see how the game goes.

Oh and also pick whichever decision you want when it asks you for one.Dont overthink it.

[Rxmonste]

Yeah, I agree with the others. Do as you wish. Don't think too much about your gameplay decisions. Do so on your next playthrough. Have fun with this one, and if you make some mistakes and wrong decisions then whatever, you can laugh it up on your next playthroughs, I suppose.

What's important is to have fun now.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Rxmonste

[Melissa]

If you have acess to DLC, I would recommend EXPotential Growth so everyone can keep up

[Czar_Yoshi]

If you have acess to DLC, I would recommend EXPotential Growth so everyone can keep up

Nope. I don't recommend listening to any gameplay recommendations.

[bookwormbabe29]

Thanks all! So far, I just unlocked 'paralogue 1' (gaiden chapters from the look of it?). I have a female tactician named Cara (not my name, but one I use a lot) who I keep teaming up with Chrom. The two are adorable together so far (hmm, bear!) so I'm liking that, though from Sumia's opening cutscene I have to assume she is the 'canon' choice, or something like it. I'm using Chrom, Cara/tactician, Lissa (healer, duh), Sully (love her attitude), and Sumia (flyers, yea!) at the moment, maybe Kellam too with his nice starting level/def. Vaike's been helping by being a good 'pair up' option to give bonus strength. Frederick goes from 'weaponless wall' to pairing up with Lissa for extra defense/movement.

My first 'snag' has been on said paralogue 1. Donnel is interesting, and makes me think of a cross between Ross and Nephenee (which isn't a bad thing in my mind). Still, the units are a 'tad' stronger here, and trying to stop that thief from getting my treasure has left me soft resetting a few times. I think I might need to give Frederick a weapon for this lol.

I love this series, I really do.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Sounds excellent. Feel free to talk about anything you like about the game, first playthrough playlogs are always interesting.

The game does push Chrom x Sumia a lot but nothing bad happens if you don't do it.

You can also do Paralogues whenever you want. They'll stay around until you complete them, so if you want/need to go train your team more you can do that and just come back.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[bookwormbabe29]

Sure, I don't mind talking if you don't mind listening ;)

I beat my first paralogue without turning Frederick into a killing machine. I paired Kellam up with Frederick, giving him enough defense the enemies weren't a threat. He charged ahead, killed the one thief, and went back to guard duty without problem. Since he aggro'd enemies on the way, they moved up and into range of my other members who cleaned up nicely. Donnel, for his part, finished several units earning his level and nearly a second one from the boss. I was kind of hoping he'd have a boss conversation with him (the opening does state he killed his dad after all) but nothing. Were those removed?

After that, I encountered my first spot pass team, who were far stronger than me (I have a few level 6 units at best, and they were level 10 at the lowest). I'm actually looking at buying an item from this team, as they have different goodies. The brave sword is tempting, but I have no one who could even wield it right now, and the soothing sword could be a fun novelty item. Still, war funds are not the highest at the moment, so I'm torn.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Boss convos are still there, but it's fairly rare for anyone but Chrom to have them. There's one other unit who joins fairly late in the game who has a few, and one or two major plot bosses who have more than one, but the days of the new recruit smack-talking whoever was harassing them are sadly gone.

Yeah, that's a Streetpass team and if you don't live in the middle of nowhere you're going to see quite a few. If you don't want to deal with them you can just dismiss them from the menu to get rid of them, or ignore them completely.

[eclipse]

. . .or you can buy something off of them. Just about every team that I've encountered had something like a Vulnerary for sale. Hell, if they're going to vanish, I might as well make use of them~!

[hersheyman]

FEA is not like Mass Effect in that you can't really get a 'bad' ending.

If you want Chrom to marry your avatar keep doing what your doing. You won't even need to get an S level support conversation. If you want someone else to marry Chrom or your avatar either get your avatar to an S rank with that person quickly or get the person you want to marry Chrom to a higher support rank than the Avatar quickly.

If you have a female avatar and she doesn't marry Chrom the game will later imply that you should have gotten them married, though it's in a humorous way so it really doesn't matter. Just do what you want. The only thing I'd say to do is take every opportunity to hear the characters talk, whether in conversations or in the barracks.

[Rxmonste]

Sure, I don't mind talking if you don't mind listening ;)

I beat my first paralogue without turning Frederick into a killing machine. I paired Kellam up with Frederick, giving him enough defense the enemies weren't a threat. He charged ahead, killed the one thief, and went back to guard duty without problem. Since he aggro'd enemies on the way, they moved up and into range of my other members who cleaned up nicely. Donnel, for his part, finished several units earning his level and nearly a second one from the boss. I was kind of hoping he'd have a boss conversation with him (the opening does state he killed his dad after all) but nothing. Were those removed?

After that, I encountered my first spot pass team, who were far stronger than me (I have a few level 6 units at best, and they were level 10 at the lowest). I'm actually looking at buying an item from this team, as they have different goodies. The brave sword is tempting, but I have no one who could even wield it right now, and the soothing sword could be a fun novelty item. Still, war funds are not the highest at the moment, so I'm torn.

You can at least buy something from these teams before they disappear, take your opportunity.

Oh, and don't be shy. You can share your gameplay experiences, no problem. I personally don't mind listening.

[bookwormbabe29]

Ok, next update. I just finished the stage 'foreseer' where assassins tried to kill our dear exalt. I'm not quite sure why 'marth' saved Chrom, seeing as how you kill a dozen assassins after the cinematic, but that first guy was apparently THE assassin of all assassins....or something? Can't say I'm too surprised by 'marth' being a girl, as I thought she was too girly. At first I thought they might going for a more feminine look, maybe something like the old fire emblem anime marth, but it didn't fit with the remakes or his smash bros. appearances. Considering I know we have time traveling kids and 'marth' knows of the future, add in marth's dramatic 'from my father!' line as she mirrors Chrom's exact stance in the arena.... well, my 'rpg sense' would bet that this is his daughter. Doesn't explain the need of the mask though, so I could be wrong. Either way, the stage was easy enough (at least on normal mode. Figured i'd get my 'blind' run in with the expected tutorial, get it done and not look back) even with the spooky wizard guy, who kind of reminds me of Nergal.

I then did my first 'random' battle with some Risen, who were higher level than me (level 9-11, with my own team 7-8 with some stragglers). Their willingness to charge into my bottle neck made for an easier battle than expected, nabbing 2 small gold bullion and a spirit dust, so I can't complain. From there, I found a traveling merchant, sold my bullion, and bought a master seal, which I did not expect to see for sale.

At this junction, my 3ds was nearly dead, so I saved and looked at some mechanical changes online via my phone. Thought it interesting to see the support conversation limit is gone, and I had been super conservative thinking it was still in place...opps? Also, learning of second seals was nifty, if not confusing. Maybe I'm misreading it, but it sounds like you can change from one class to another over and over again, as long as you have second seals, and it seems like they are very common with street pass and DLC. If I understand it right, it seems growth rate is less important as you can keep leveling yourself over and over again. I guess it's to learn skills, as Lissa learned a new skill at level 10... new skills at level 10 and 20, maybe? It seems like every character can have perfect stats in everything, be everything, as long as you put the the time in. My level 2 bench warmers (Stahl, Virion) could level up infinitely and could still become maxed if I grind random monsters. Better than arena abuse, I suppose, but still odd.

Thinking of characters, my main right now are Chrom, Cara/tactician, Lissa, Sumia, Sully, Kellam, and Ricken (who just showed up and wrecking the field like a pro). They're all level 9, except for Lissa who is 12 (from healing every paper cut under the sun). I've been feeding Lon'qu, Donnel, and Maribelle some exp, and will likely need to buff up Gaius, my new thief. Not sure what to make of Panne yet. Frederick, Vaike, Stahl, Miriel, and Virion have been warming the bench. Not sure if it's worth it to try to bring up everyone to be super maxed, though if I wait too long I doubt a level 2 archer is going to be able to defeat enemies. Hm. I can think of it some more tomorrow, as now it's time for bed. Thanks for reading :)

[Czar_Yoshi]

Marth "saving" Chrom is called gameplay-story segregation (it's more obvious later on in a cutscene where you get a scripted dual guard against an attack that would quite likely do 0 damage).

At this junction, my 3ds was nearly dead, so I saved and looked at some mechanical changes online via my phone. Thought it interesting to see the support conversation limit is gone, and I had been super conservative thinking it was still in place...opps? Also, learning of second seals was nifty, if not confusing. Maybe I'm misreading it, but it sounds like you can change from one class to another over and over again, as long as you have second seals, and it seems like they are very common with street pass and DLC. If I understand it right, it seems growth rate is less important as you can keep leveling yourself over and over again. I guess it's to learn skills, as Lissa learned a new skill at level 10... new skills at level 10 and 20, maybe? It seems like every character can have perfect stats in everything, be everything, as long as you put the the time in. My level 2 bench warmers (Stahl, Virion) could level up infinitely and could still become maxed if I grind random monsters. Better than arena abuse, I suppose, but still odd.

Yes, you can raise everyone to their stat caps now. The exact mechanics are kind of complicated, so don't sweat it. Growth rates still do matter because there's no way you want to minmax everyone during the main story (it's tedious, makes the rest of the game tedious, and doesn't even have a payoff unless you have DLC).

There are always very easy ways of bringing up super weak units to par with the rest of your team even if the Risen outgrow them, so don't worry about that either.

[isetrh]

Don't worry too much about caps. You won't be seeing promoted caps until very late game. They're ridiculously high, to the point that 35 or so in a non-Res stat is considered bad.

On my Normal runs I didn't know what I was doing with Second Seals. I reccomend reclassing (or not) whoever you like to whatever you like. That said, the little girl who you recruit in a couple chapters is really dissapointing outside of her base class.

Outside of deaths or an S support you don't like, you can't permanently screw yourself over. Recruitments are all straightforward too, so there's not much worth worrying about. I get wanting to do research though; I do the same when I start an FE.

[eclipse]

First off, that was a really nice Risen battle! Stat boosters aren't exactly common drops!

You learn skills at the following levels (for most classes):

Unpromoted - 1 and 10

Promoted - 5 and 15

Any class that can't use a Master Seal to promote learns their skills at 1 and 15 instead (this is Donnel and Panne for you right now).

For now, just use whoever you want - as long as you have fun, it'll be worth it~!

[Kirie]

I don't really have much to add, I just wanted to thank you for posting this and let you know you have another reader. I always really enjoying reading through or hearing about people's first experiences playing a game that I know well. When a friend of mine first got FE:A a few months ago, I kept pumping him for stories, wanting to know how far he was, who he was pairing up, etc. and so forth. It's just fun to me.

I would recommend playing around with Second Seals if you want to, just to get a feel for them. Most people can only change to a limited number of classes (except for Cara), so it's not quite as much of a choice overload as it may seem. I was kind of terrified of them my first playthrough and didn't even dabble in them until my second go, but it's a "fun" mechanic as much as it is a useful one. I liked being able to turn my Tactician into a Pegasus Knight because it's one of my favourite classes.

[bookwormbabe29]

Not much to report on today. I debated training up my weaker units and woke up to find some very weak risen appeared on the map. I chalked it up to fate and let the weaker units go to town. Seeing how weak the random risen battle foes were, I experimented with a reeking box I gained from an event tile earlier, trying to see if I could find another easier battle for the weaker units. I couldn't though. I did remember I had skipped paralogue 2, so I checked that out and found weaker enemies there. Letting the weaker units have some fun, they made it to Anna without any trouble and rescued the village. And I have to say, I LOVE Anna so far, and want her on my team. I would so let her be a merlinus rip off and guard her if she'd join.

At this point, I talked to my friend Sarah, the only fire emblem fanatic I know in person. I told her of my trying to beef up my weaker units, and she told me of some DLC content for super easy grinding. I was hesitant, but with some help I gave it a shot and bought a pack with 'the golden gaffe' and 'exponential growth' in it. I tried them out wanting to see how DLC worked, and found them very over powered grinding spots as advertised. With the 'gold' one, even with me only being able to take out the weakest opponents I made several thousand gold in one battle. With 'growth' I kept my main units out of it, and let the weaker units get some exp, try to catch them up. Lon'qu and virion seem to be in a contest to see who can have the lowest STR, so I can't see them getting much use at the moment. Miriel looks ok, and Stahl and Vaike made some impressive gains. Donnel did too, but well, no surprise there. Out of the under leveled group, Donnel and Vaike have the best odds of seeing some use. Stahl just irks me for some reason (shrug).

The battles were quite quick, but that's all I was able to do today in between nine hours of baby sitting and trying to get my dwarf cleric to level 8 in pathfinder lol. Oh well, tomorrow's another day, though I am glad to learn how DLC works. It seems quite easy to abuse, so I'm going to hold off on doing anymore to avoid breaking the game balance and such. At least with this much gold I can buy all my units their own weapons and stop sharing... that's progress, right?

[eclipse]

If you REALLY want to abuse DLC, get Lost Bloodlines 3. It'll be a while before a single unit can solo it, but if you can do it, you'll get a LOT of experience.

BRB, banning you for being irked by Stahl

You'll also be able to buy stuff off of the Anna shops. Make sure to keep a decent amount of pocket change; the stat boosters go for 2,500 apiece, or so!

[Czar_Yoshi]

Don't mess around with DLC too much or it will break the difficulty.

On Normal and Hard Risen difficulty is based on where they spawn. Want them weaker? Use an early chapter. Want them stronger? Use a later chapter.

[bookwormbabe29]

Don't mess around with DLC too much or it will break the difficulty.

Yea, those are my thoughts exactly. I'm fairly sure I could have every unit level 20, promoted, and with a swanky forged weapon before I do another story battle if I were so inclined. It was fun to see how it worked, but the game's normal mode is pretty tame, and making it easier is not needed. I can see the 'growth' one being useful for the est/nino/etc type character who shows up super late and weak, but i'd rather not play 'god mode' essentially. I have some free time today, so I'm going to see if I can get the exalt to the east palace. Something about that glowing red dot and the 'begin battle' option tells me it's not as secret as the characters think. The real question is whether or not dear sister Emm is going to be of the 'character killed and we must avenge' trope (like nearly every father character) or more of an Elincia who we protect for ever. Can go either way right now in my mind; on one hand, we had Marth rush in to protect her, so she seems important for the future in a 'Terminator' kind of way. On the other hand, Chrom is likely next in line, so her days could be numbered.

Tune in next episode, for 'the Never ending escort mission" or "Risen barbecue, Emm, great!"

[Kirie]

If you're interested in DLC, I'd strongly suggest checking out SF's main page about it and seeing what all the various chapters have to offer. The EXP/Gold grinding ones seem obvious, but like Czar_Yoshi says, they'll also break the game for you very easily, so I wouldn't recommend those for an early playthrough, unless you were having serious trouble. However, some of the other DLC maps offer cool things (like new skills or classes) that may be more fun for you to play around with. The more stars a map has, the more difficult it is, so some are better at different points of your playthrough.

For me, I liked using the EXP chapter to level up the characters I'm not planning on using because I'm a sap who doesn't like any of her benched characters to feel left out.

[Sentacotus]

First off congrats on getting the game its amazing and a great starting point. As for the DLC question its not bad. Actually some of them can be quite fun and challenging. Play the game however you want (thats the beauty of it) I wouldn't be too afraid of the DLC. Worst case just save another file if you use the DLC and have your original without it. That leaves one for another challenge/no grind run.

[bookwormbabe29]

Well, three battles down, and it looks like we have a winner on the 'will Emm survive' pool...

Battle 1 was the ambush on the pass. I find it funny that their long time friend betrays them and promptly murdered in front on everyone, and no one comments on it afterwards. Stage itself was fairly straight forward (they have fliers?! egads!), though I did do something in new in starting to use 'pair up' for the entire fight. I was hoping fewer units might make it more challenging (it didn't) and stayed with to build supports. At the end, I was very much with Chrom in 'this is a TERRIBLE plan.' i would have sent Phila and Lissa on ahead on Phila's pegasus myself, in hopes of more speed while still sending a royal with a strong guard. Too bad I'm not the tactician.... oh wait. I like how the avatar is a solid unit in combat, but I would personally like to see more of the actual planning, have the tactician be more....tactical. Suikoden's a good example of this, or even Kessen. A minor nitpick really, but if my class is 'tactician' I think i'd have more say in the army's big decisions.

Battle 2 of the night was in the dessert, and I think I searched a third of the map for hidden items before I caved and looked up 'hidden items' online. New recruit Cordelia really shined, and caught up in levels from slaughtering this map with Kellam as her partner. The two new characters from this stage were both fun as well, and good for a laugh. Otherwise, fairly dull map for the vets knowing how this mysterious 'sand' works.

Lastly, trying to rescue Emm from the chopping block. This was annoying, as I kept making mistakes reading the enemy's range, which ended up with a character getting too much attention at once. Honestly, think it was just me getting tired and being sloppy, but it was still annoying. Two MORE characters here, a prepromote and a dark mage, so that could be fun. None of the enemies were overly hard when I wasn't sending a character to face 5+ of them a round. The cutscene was sad, even with it being a known possibility. Marth showing up at the end after being absent a while was kind of odd, but whatever.

After that, I noticed the world map had two risen on one square, and decided to check it out. There was a draconshield on the boss, and while I can't finish it tonight, I saved it to nab it later.

At this point, I have two master seals, and 2 second seals. Not sure who I'm going to use them on yet, and (after saving) tried experimenting with them, seeing what classes looked like. i was surprised to see the second seal had limited options, that didn't seem to fit an obvious pattern. I might need to look into it more, see if I can make sense of it all. For now, it's time for bed :)