Hardest chapter of each game on the SNES?

[Lantairu]

What do you think? I mainly am posting this to see what I'm supposed to be dreading in my first playthrough of FE5 I'm in the middle of.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Lantairu

[DragonLord]

I have yet to complete Thracia 776, still on Chapter 10. I do recall Chapter 5 being a bit tricky since Eyvel and Nanna are pitted against very powerful enemies in the first few turns. I've also heard people complaining about Chapter 24x.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Only completed FE5.

For a first time player: 24x (easy, if you know how to warpskip)

For someone with preknowledge: 5 (the swordmaster and the warrior in the "arena" have extreme high stats; can double or oneshot you).

22 is also very difficult because of the tons of leadership stars of the enemies.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[Lantairu]

I have yet to complete Thracia 776, still on Chapter 10. I do recall Chapter 5 being a bit tricky since Eyvel and Nanna are pitted against very powerful enemies in the first few turns. I've also heard people complaining about Chapter 24x.

I'm also on Chapter 10. I remember Chapter 4 being a pain because you basically had to hope reinforcements didn't spawn in certain places and then you open the door and you're ambushed by tons of people. That's a jerk move. Chapter 5 was kind of tricky. Chapter 6 took me ages to do and I had to skip half of the villages. Chapter 8 (or whatever the chapter is where you are going through the mountain to save the four horse units) was pretty hard. 2x was tricky going in blind.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Lantairu

[General Horace]

FE3: Chapter 3 because it's so enormous I have to will myself to play it.

FE4: probably chapter 10, lots of staves and Julius/Ishtar/Alvis's squad is pretty hard to deal with.

FE5: Chapter 4x, because turn 1 is bullshit

[Lantairu]

FE5: Chapter 4x, because turn 1 is bullshit

Is that the one where you walk forward into a sea of armor knights?

[General Horace]

Yeah, plus mages and soldiers. The first time you play this chapter you're pretty much guarenteed to lose someone turn 1 because you have no idea what's coming because of the Fog of War. Even when you know what's coming, most of your units just aren't durable enough and don't have good enough offence to deal with the first couple of turns.

[Refa]

FE3: Chapter 3 because it's so enormous I have to will myself to play it.

FE4: probably chapter 10, lots of staves and Julius/Ishtar/Alvis's squad is pretty hard to deal with.

FE5: Chapter 4x, because turn 1 is bullshit

Definitely this. Only possible contender is FE4 Chapter 2 (because it's such a pain to get the chump squad to live), but that's not as bad as 10.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Refa

[Batter the Beast]

FE3: Been forever since I've played this but I remember ch 11 being dumb cause huge desert + 12 move defense piercing flying dragons with 1-2 range attacks

FE4: Ch 10 cause Arvis is a jerk and so are the billions of units in this chapter

FE5: Ch 4 since bad RNG in the last turn means a reset which is super dumb because this chapter takes a little while if you want 4x

[Jedi]

FE3: Chapter 3 because it's so enormous I have to will myself to play it.

FE4: probably chapter 10, lots of staves and Julius/Ishtar/Alvis's squad is pretty hard to deal with.

FE5: Chapter 4x, because turn 1 is bullshit

Going to third this set of chapters.

4x was so stupid for a first run looool.

[Chalis]

Definitely this. Only possible contender is FE4 Chapter 2 (because it's such a pain to get the chump squad to live), but that's not as bad as 10.

Chapter 2 also has this

It's not the end of the world to lose out on it or even the knight ring, but making a wild dash for it leads to a sorry sight of beat up horseback knights and an overwhelmed Ethlin right in time for Voltz's sword train.

Meanwhile chapter 10, you at least have Shannan, Ares, and maybe some charisma bots.

Edit:

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. Levin can save them all as long as he procs Continue at least once.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Chalis

[Lantairu]

FE4: Ch 10 cause Arvis is a jerk and so are the billions of units in this chapter

FE5: Ch 4 since bad RNG in the last turn means a reset which is super dumb because this chapter takes a little while if you want 4x

FE4: I never found Chapter 10 difficult, except for maybe the beginning of the chapter. Arvis wasn't that bad. With Sety, Shannan, and Seliph, I wiped him out fairly easily.

FE5: Basically summed up all the reasons I hate that chapter.

[Jedi]

Edit:

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. Levin can save them all as long as he procs Continue at least once.

No need to call yourself an idiot! It looks tricky on first glance and even repeated glances, Levin is just awesome like that though

[General Horace]

Chapter 2 also has this

It's not the end of the world to lose out on it or even the knight ring, but making a wild dash for it leads to a sorry sight of beat up horseback knights and an overwhelmed Ethlin right in time for Voltz's sword train.

Meanwhile chapter 10, you at least have Shannan, Ares, and maybe some charisma bots.

Edit:

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. Levin can save them all as long as he procs Continue at least once.

You can save all the villages without Levin doing anything if you're fast enough! It's pretty frustrating the first few times you play it though.

Shanan is pretty horrible in chapter 10, I dunno why he keeps getting brought up. He can't avoid sleep staves, and is likely one shotted by Ishtar and has no hope of surviving an attack from Alvis. It's pretty much the Aless and Celice show.

Edited August 22, 2015 by General Horace

[Kiddo]

For the FE3 ones, it might be a good idea to specify "Book 1" or "Book 2".

Book 1: Camus. Just Camus alone. This one, single unit is more difficult than anything else in the entirety of book 1 (That is intended to be beaten, that is.). This makes perfect sense narrative-wise, mind, but it doesn't help that unlike in Shadow Dragon for DS, he's guarding the castle directly, meaning there's less angles to attack him from AND he gets the benefits of the castle's defense, dodge and heal buffs (And thus, doesn't need to use Gradivius to heal, meaning he has more uses of it). On my first run of this game I spent quite a while struggling to make a serious dent to him up until Ogma got a lucky crit, and even THEN it took MULTIPLE lucky crits to do him in.

Book 2: Chapter 2 is a ridiculous difficulty jump for the second map, especially following the first map which was basically more a story setpiece than an actual map with challenge, and Chapter 3 with it's safe-path being basically walking all around the perimeter of the map and taking down Dragon Knights (Again, Dragon Knights. ON THE THIRD MAP) isn't much better. And through this all your units are as fragile as glass, you don't have Ogma or a good prepromote like Siirus until later, and there's no decent way to buff your units. And then this is followed by maps where you get Ogma, Sirius and the Lady Sword, and ones like the one Ellerean can be recruited in where you can win without fighting anyone at all... Book 2 has absolutely no proper difficulty balance whatsoever.

Seisen: Chapter 1. No other FE map has made recruit a unit by baiting her, running around a portion of a map (That in a normal FE game would be the permeter of a whole map) to get her away from the castle she's guarding, and then seizing the castle, and then talking to her. All while on the other side of the map a ridiculously fragile thief has to fend himself from bandits using nothing more than dodge bonuses from towns/forests and the weapon triangle, lest the bandits instead go after the cleric who can't fend for herself at all.

Thracia: Mostly whatever everyone else said.

[feplus]

Mystery Ch.3 isn't so bad. Lots of players make the mistake of baiting Matthis south which makes things harder, when he should be baited north by Palla. If you're willing to forego the silver axe it's beatable in a reasonable number of turns.

[Lantairu]

For the FE3 ones, it might be a good idea to specify "Book 1" or "Book 2".

Book 1: Camus. Just Camus alone. This one, single unit is more difficult than anything else in the entirety of book 1 (That is intended to be beaten, that is.). This makes perfect sense narrative-wise, mind, but it doesn't help that unlike in Shadow Dragon for DS, he's guarding the castle directly, meaning there's less angles to attack him from AND he gets the benefits of the castle's defense, dodge and heal buffs (And thus, doesn't need to use Gradivius to heal, meaning he has more uses of it). On my first run of this game I spent quite a while struggling to make a serious dent to him up until Ogma got a lucky crit, and even THEN it took MULTIPLE lucky crits to do him in.

Book 2: Chapter 2 is a ridiculous difficulty jump for the second map, especially following the first map which was basically more a story setpiece than an actual map with challenge, and Chapter 3 with it's safe-path being basically walking all around the perimeter of the map and taking down Dragon Knights (Again, Dragon Knights. ON THE THIRD MAP) isn't much better. And through this all your units are as fragile as glass, you don't have Ogma or a good prepromote like Siirus until later, and there's no decent way to buff your units. And then this is followed by maps where you get Ogma, Sirius and the Lady Sword, and ones like the one Ellerean can be recruited in where you can win without fighting anyone at all... Book 2 has absolutely no proper difficulty balance whatsoever.

Seisen: Chapter 1. No other FE map has made recruit a unit by baiting her, running around a portion of a map (That in a normal FE game would be the permeter of a whole map) to get her away from the castle she's guarding, and then seizing the castle, and then talking to her. All while on the other side of the map a ridiculously fragile thief has to fend himself from bandits using nothing more than dodge bonuses from towns/forests and the weapon triangle, lest the bandits instead go after the cleric who can't fend for herself at all.

Thracia: Mostly whatever everyone else said.

Book 1: Really? All I did was throw Navarre in there with the Miracle sword and killed him in a round or two. Honestly, Book 1 is a complete pushover, especially once Marth gets the Falchion. Because the rest of the enemies you face in the game are dragons for the most part, it turns into "warp Marth right in front of the final boss and clear the final chapter in 1 turn Emblem"

Book 2: Didn't have any trouble with Chapter 2. I just started taking a break from FE3 to finish FE5, so I'm right in the middle of Chapter 3, and so far no problems.

Seisen: Ayra has never been a problem for me. Honestly, the hardest part of that game was Chapter 9, mainly because I was caught completely off guard my first time when suddenly 3/4 of all my castles were destroyed by Dragon Knights.

[Kiddo]

Book 1: Really? All I did was throw Navarre in there with the Miracle sword and killed him in a round or two. Honestly, Book 1 is a complete pushover, especially once Marth gets the Falchion. Because the rest of the enemies you face in the game are dragons for the most part, it turns into "warp Marth right in front of the final boss and clear the final chapter in 1 turn Emblem"

Book 2: Didn't have any trouble with Chapter 2. I just started taking a break from FE3 to finish FE5, so I'm right in the middle of Chapter 3, and so far no problems.

Seisen: Ayra has never been a problem for me. Honestly, the hardest part of that game was Chapter 9, mainly because I was caught completely off guard my first time when suddenly 3/4 of all my castles were destroyed by Dragon Knights.

I must have had crappy RNG on weapon growth, because I don't recall anyone in my party being able to equip the Miracle Sword by that point. (By the time anyone COULD, I had Falchion and it made using most other weapons pointless.)

The thing is that you're mostly right about book 1 being a pushover, which is why Camus being such a choke point for me was a total WTF moment. I actually tried looking up a guide on how to beat him since it seemed like I was struggling way more than I thought I should have been, and figured maybe there was something about him I didn't figure out, and it's suggestion basically amounted to "Send Marth up there with Sheeda (ye olde spelling) and use the support for stat boosts." I didn't even bother since my Marth couldn't take on Camus even with any of that. That being said, Ogma eventually handled him pretty well... mostly because he somehow managed to crit twice even without a Killer Edge, which I consider more RNG blessing than anything about the typical difficulty.

As for chapters 2 and 3 on book 2, part of the problem isn't so much that they're "hard" compared to what else I've played FE-wise, but that:

1) These two maps are more difficult than more or less the entire pre-endgame due to the size, the types of enemies encountered, and what your party currently is compared to other points in the game.

2) The map layouts try to bait you into trying to go fast and then punish you for it, with the only real counter/prevention to the punish being "stop going fast". When I played these maps I was almost on them as long as I would be on a Seisen map. Again, these are the second and third maps of the "game", respectively, and none of the other maps beat you down with these as hard (In fact, it's fairly easy to just blitz through many of the later maps.)

Mystery Ch.3 isn't so bad. Lots of players make the mistake of baiting Matthis south which makes things harder, when he should be baited north by Palla. If you're willing to forego the silver axe it's beatable in a reasonable number of turns.

If I recall my turn count in Ch. 3, it was around 40 or so turns (In comparison, my typical run-through of an early-game FE map for GBA goes around 13-18 turns, barring the ones with pre-set turn counts. Needless to say, I consider a turn-count greater than 30, particularly in earlier FEs with no fast-forward options, to be a bit of a "Holy heck that took forever" territory.).... and about 20 of them was simply walking around in a circle so that Marth could get in a town on the opposite side of the map to recruit Julian who could then recruit Mathis. I suppose in that instance "annoying and tedious" would be more appropriate a term to use than "hard", but either one would want to make me stop playing and think about why I'm doing this.

[feplus]

Going around the long way is supposed to be laborious. It's offered as a crutch and the price for taking the easy route is tedium. Better to cut over the bridge with Marth. Chapter can be cleared in under fifteen turns.

[Anouleth]

Only completed FE5.

For a first time player: 24x (easy, if you know how to warpskip)

For someone with preknowledge: 5 (the swordmaster and the warrior in the "arena" have extreme high stats; can double or oneshot you).

22 is also very difficult because of the tons of leadership stars of the enemies.

Just so you know, the swordmaster and warrior can easily be taken care of by Eyvel. It's literally impossible for Eyvel to die. The only enemies you don't want Eyvel to kill are Mareeta and Galzus, but Eyvel will not counterattack Mareeta and by the time Galzus spawns, you should be in position to open the entrance to the coliseum, which will despawn Mareeta and Galzus.

[Straylock]

FE4: Kind of hard to say which one chapter is the hardest, as the game is more about having harder moments in particular chapters rather than making them hard throughout. Out of those moments though, Julius and Ishtar showing up on Chapter 10 probably killed me more than anything else in that game, but that was really the only super hard part of that chapter.

FE5: I haven't beaten this game yet, but Cyas makes chapters that he appears in absolutely brutal. Pure/holy waters are pretty much mandatory in this game.

[Lantairu]

FE4: Kind of hard to say which one chapter is the hardest, as the game is more about having harder moments in particular chapters rather than making them hard throughout. Out of those moments though, Julius and Ishtar showing up on Chapter 10 probably killed me more than anything else in that game, but that was really the only super hard part of that chapter.

FE5: I haven't beaten this game yet, but Cyas makes chapters that he appears in absolutely brutal. Pure/holy waters are pretty much mandatory in this game.

I don't see why everyone is saying they were having so much trouble with Julius and Ishtar, as I never have trouble with them. Again, Sety, Shannan, Seliph, and Ares are the best units in the Second Generation. But yeah, I've heard bad things about Cyas.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Just so you know, the swordmaster and warrior can easily be taken care of by Eyvel. It's literally impossible for Eyvel to die. The only enemies you don't want Eyvel to kill are Mareeta and Galzus, but Eyvel will not counterattack Mareeta and by the time Galzus spawns, you should be in position to open the entrance to the coliseum, which will despawn Mareeta and Galzus.

When I played this chapter the first time, I wanted to open the door before the group of mages reached the entrance of the coliseum. Since I only had two units, who could counterattack them (Leaf and Asvel), they were another nasty problem for me.

However I used both and Nanna to kill the two second tier enemies, which worked.

I only was lucky that Karin dodged the warrior, who could oneshot her.

Edit: How the hell could I forget Asvel as 2 range user?

Edited August 25, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[sirmola]

The thing is that I wanted to open the door before the group of mages reached the entrance of the coliseum. Since I only had one unit, who could counterattack them (Leaf's light sword), they were another nasty problem for me.

That part is much easier if you went to chapter 4x and got asvel. his grafcalaber spell is OP. In fact, he is so good that he is worth replaying chapter 4 to get. It also helps if you gave evel's fire sword to lief or lifus in chapter 3, and give it to fergus (he has to swing a sword 20 times to be able to use it). Dalshin can also counter if you captured a hand axe in chapter 4 or 4x. Nana can keep the space in front of the door clear if you put her on the stairs and equip the earth sword, which has a nosferatu effect.

Edited August 25, 2015 by sirmola

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Forgot to mention the best unit Asvel for some reason.

I just realized that the best strategy seems to be to wait till the mages are eliminated, before I'm going to open the door.

Asvel can deal with them, although he's not invisible and can take some damage.

If Eyvel can kill one of the second tier units in the coliseum, I should be fine.

I open the door, Asvel, Leaf and Nanna can take out the other one and Galzus won't be a problem.