The difficulty of Fire Emblem is exaggerated, it's a fairly easy series.

[StarPrince]

Does anyone ever think the permadeath makes Fire Emblem seem harder to others than it actually is?

In my experience even though units die permanently the games are simple enough as long as you take the time to grasp the mechanics instead of jumping in quickly. Only the absurd maniac and lunatic modes are actually painful while the normal modes are easy.

FE7 is my most recent FE that I am playing and it's pretty fair, actually. No Player Unit seemed absurdly powerful to me and it's a balanced experience. There are always decent units to go around even while some get stat screwed. I still never worry about being stuck. And so it is easy but not stupidly easy like 8, 9, or 13.

FE 8 is very easy. In Pokemon you level up your starter, catch other pokemon, and create a stronger team. In Fire Emblem: Sacred Seth, you start with Mewtwo who kills everyone by looking at them and don't need to give a shit about anyone else.

FE9 gives you Titania, who I use to weaken knights and bosses with an iron lance so my first tiers can get trained properly. 1st tier units can catch up quickly by mooching off Titania and other units that get promoted and combined with BEXP you can have a hell of an army. I once saw people on a thread argue that it's more efficient to give Titania boss kills so she can level up too and all I could wonder is WHY THE F*CK DOES TITANIA NEED TO LEVEL UP? She's good at base level and you can train her all you want after Ike promotes. Then Tanith comes and she rules the skies by reinforcing cannon fodder and using the Sonic Sword to butcher Wyvern Riders. Ike easily has the most powerful armies in both his games.

FE 10 can blindside even veterans. I assumed it was like any other FE where you keep all your units so I used Tauroneo, Sothe, Tormod, Muarim, Nailah, and BK for a hell of an easy part one. This was on normal mode which is actually hard mode in disguise. Sothe practically soloed 1-3 and 1-4. Jill was my only promoted unit and part 3 DB gave a rude awakening to me.

Even so, the Daein NPC's were a godsend and Sothe, Jill, Zihark, and Volug tanked through 3-6 and 3-12 easily enough. 3-13 was hell but i had Jill, Volug, and my Champion Fiona Rescue drop all the partner units behind the top line out into the battlefield where they could help. Even Meg helped by dropping off a fire sage into the fold. A lance-general was dropped into Tauroneo's spot and Tauroneo was crowned and free to move from his spot. This game didn't even make it clear you could remove skills so I didn't try on the first playthough and Resolve with Killer Lance made him a beast.

After winning this part, making it to endgame is guaranteed since each team has powerful units and skrimir and naesala are forced on to the Dawn brigade team. The other parts of the game are simple as part 2 has better units while Ike's missions are a cakewalk. Ike and Haar never died for me except through 3% Elthunder critical hits. This is probably the only FE I've played that can be hard on a blind playthrough on "normal mode" because of the crap it pulled where the weakest team was stripped of it's best units without warning. This game also has a billion Seths and Titanias ready to wreck shit and is probably the easiest FE when Ike, Tibarn, or Elincia are in command with their authority stars and great units.

The last game FE I have played is FE13 and besides lunatic modes Pair Up Veteran!Robin and Frederick make for a simple game. Lot's of Pegasus knights or myrmidons to pair up with other units so you can double anything even if your character has shitty base speed. Or give myrms and peggies a Great knight or Knight so they can get STR and DEF. You can forge anything! You can find OP weapons in the sparkles!

It honestly seems character choice matters more than difficulty level. Going Titanialess, Sethless, Sotheless, or Frederick-free is probably more meaningful than choosing a higher difficulty. Using shittier units seems like the real way to be challenged since every game spoils you with great, ready-to-kill high stat monsters both in the earlygame and right before endgame just in case. Honestly the greatest difficulty is learning the game mechanics. A little creativity can help you win since you always have powerful units.

I concede I am oversimplifying the strategy, but I felt that fear of difficulty in Fire Emblem deterring fans was permadeath and also was was mostly due to the fact that strategy games are played less and that knowledge of the mechanics is difficult since each series of Strategy games have different mechanics. Once you are armed with the knowledge of Terrain, Skills, Chokepoints, 1-2 range weapons and forges, prepromotes, and supports can win the games quite easily, and these are not pointed out by the instructions, but if these things were highlighted to newbies, the games would probably lose their reputation of toughness. These tools are far more powerful than what the instruction books tell you such as obeying the weapon triangle and using multiple weak units to gang up on strong enemies instead of using the elites you already have; and make the games a lot easier now.

Edited December 16, 2015 by StarPrince

[eclipse]

. . .and what is the point of this topic?

[Radiant Dragon]

Honestly the greatest difficulty is learning the game mechanics.

This is an often understated part of the difficulty of the series, however. I don't mean to boil your entire point into just one sentence here, but moreso than any other game (even any other strategy game) I've played, understanding Fire Emblem's mechanics, the math involved, exactly what each stat affects and by how much, etc. is extremely crucial. You don't have fancy abilities to fall back on like other SRPGs, it's pure numbers here. In addition, combat is extremely unforgiving because if the AI can gang up on and kill someone they will, forcing you to restart or go on without them. Most FE games are also rather unforgiving to those trying to grind, which is also a departure compared to most other SRPGs.

I'll use Final Fantasy Tactics Advance as a comparison here (which is a really easy game); I've played that game to death and yet I still have no idea how each of my unit's stats affects exactly how much damage they can deal or take, and the game is designed such that I don't really need to. Yeah, I could always look up the formulas if I needed to, but it's not exactly the kind of math you can do in your head. The AI is content with spreading it's damage around instead of gunning for your weakest units, and it's easy to see when you can get some EXP for the units you're trying to train (random battles/easy side missions) and when you need to bring in your A-Team (story missions, especially Totema). Don't even get me started on cheap abilities like Last Breath (basically Lethality but with a good chance to hit), Smile (basically being able to dance someone four squares away), Ultima (ridiculous amounts of damage), etc. The game doesn't really punish you for making mistakes, either.

If you've played other SRPGs like FFT, Tactics Ogre or what have you, how often do you find yourself needing to restart a battle? How often do you have to restart in Fire Emblem? FE's easier modes seem to be designed such to allow the player to overpower the enemy with sheer stats rather than forcing the player to take advantage of all the different tools they're given, which brings it closer in difficulty to other SRPGs (the simplified combat window in Awakening would seem to support this theory as well).

[Light Master]

Go play Thracia 776 and then come back here XD

[Zerosabers]

New players have to learn things like the weapon triangle, durability(except 2 and 14), effective damage and a bunch of other mechanics.

Yes the games are easy once you know exactly what to do, but pretty much every game is.

[BeMine96]

Yes the games are easy once you know exactly what to do, but pretty much every game is.

[Moblin Major General]

Tell that to Thracia 776 and see if it gives a flying fuck about your observation.

[VincentASM]

I don't disagree with any of the points; in Fire Emblem, once you master the mechanics (which are fairly standard throughout the games), you've mastered most of the game.

Trouble is, for the majority of players, a lot of this stuff is hidden away or requires looking up on the Internet to properly understand.

Permadeath itself isn't hard, but it definitely punishes players who don't get to grips with the mechanics. So when people are having a hard time, they'll cite permadeath as the hardest thing, because that's the thing that pushed them to reset or continue with a crippled team.

Actually, I don't think Thracia is that bad once you've done a run and gotten some experience of how the game works. Granted, there are some annoyances that you can't get around with any amount of experience, like the minimum 1% and maximum 99% hit rates and overall low stat caps, etc.

[Baldrick]

Thracia is one of the easier games in the series to break, mainly due to the power and accessibility of staves.

I like the concept of Lunatic+ because it has random elements, but not in a way that makes it completely luck-based. Even when you get ahead of the stat curve you can't throw a superunit at the enemy and win without any strategy.

Yes the games are easy once you know exactly what to do, but pretty much every game is.

Unlike many games, Fire Emblem is entirely turn-based so there's no difficulty in executing a plan.

[The DanMan]

Everything is easy once you get past the learning curve; it just depends on how big the learning curve is.

[SSbardock84]

Everything is easy once you get past the learning curve; it just depends on how big the learning curve is.

Yeah, I agree. Fire Emblem is just so easy for me because I've been playing it my whole life. It can be hard for people when they first play, but they eventually get better . . . sometimes.

[dondon151]

i like to complain that fire emblem is easy

but i know that i'm wrong when i see just how bad people can be at fire emblem

[DragonLord]

Funny how you don't mention anything before FE7 (I'm also assuming you haven't played those ones), those games tend to be "harder" in my opinion. Mainly Thracia where the difficulty comes in the scenarios they put you in. Anyway, permadeath to me isn't something that really ramps up the difficulty that much, but I do admit I restart a game when I lose a character, it forces me to think strategically about how to win without losing anyone.

Everything is easy once you get past the learning curve; it just depends on how big the learning curve is.

Ah, this too. When I started out with FE6, I was forced to learn the mechanics of the game on the spot, I didn't even know there was a tutorial hidden in the menus. Once I got those down however, it was a walk in the park.

Edited December 17, 2015 by DragonLord

[NekoKnight]

+1 for "the game is easy after you have mastered all the mechanics" or rather, "you'll know how to play the game well after you learn how to play the game".

I'd still say the games provide plenty of challenge, with permadeath making careless moves result in a game over. If the game was really as easy as you say, there wouldn't be a casual or phoenix mode.

[Sniper Knight]

+1 for "the game is easy after you have mastered all the mechanics" or rather, "you'll know how to play the game well after you learn how to play the game".

I'd still say the games provide plenty of challenge, with permadeath making careless moves result in a game over. If the game was really as easy as you say, there wouldn't be a casual or phoenix mode.

Any FE game played the "proper" way - no restarting or savestating - can still be pretty difficult, even if you're used to playing, since it's rather frustrating to be unable to fix your careless errors. Most newer FE players have a rough start if they try to play the older games, since the mechanics tend to be quite varied within the series. If you do anything enough, you'll get used to it. FE's difficulty comes from the amount of mechanics you have to get used to rather than how hard they are.

[NekoKnight]

Any FE game played the "proper" way - no restarting or savestating - can still be pretty difficult, even if you're used to playing, since it's rather frustrating to be unable to fix your careless errors. Most newer FE players have a rough start if they try to play the older games, since the mechanics tend to be quite varied within the series. If you do anything enough, you'll get used to it. FE's difficulty comes from the amount of mechanics you have to get used to rather than how hard they are.

And because it's turn-based, you don't need skillful hand-eye coordination or quick reflexes to be good. Playing well is just patience + knowledge of game mechanics. Difficulty is how much you need of those too traits.

[Junkhead]

FE 8 is very easy. In Pokemon you level up your starter, catch other pokemon, and create a stronger team. In Fire Emblem: Sacred Seth, you start with Mewtwo who kills everyone by looking at them and don't need to give a shit about anyone else.

You can find OP weapons in the sparkles!

OP is so funny and adorable, lulz.

It's true that a lot of the difficulty in FE (when you're a beginner) lies in understanding. You should play the more harder modes in each respective game to say that they're actually pretty good at being difficult. FE7 HHM is a nice example, FE9 Maniac Mode (personal favorite, along with) FE10's HM , FE13's Lunatic (it's good, worthwhile and not stupidly easy if you don't grind your Avatar to death) and then there's the many difficulties FE11 gives you from HM's 1 - 5. I forgot to mention FE6 into the mist, but it's definitely hard and a lot harder when hitrates suck.