Which difficulty should I play in all three routes

[Radiance]

I have played FE and I'm not new to the series, I have been a fan for 4 years. I have played on the highest diffculty in the FE games I played(Yes, even Awakening Lunatic Plus and that was hell). When I play a new FE game, I start on like mid difficulty. For these three paths, what do you guys suggest I should start off with. The whole Hoshido and Nohr difficulty make me wonder what to do first, normal, hard, or lunatic. No chapter level spoilers please, just your personally experience. I ordered the Special Edition so some info would help. (Btw nice keychain bonus Gamestop)

Edited January 11, 2016 by Radiance

[Solkia]

I usually play the lowest difficulty first to evaluate the maps then the next difficulty up for a better challenge.

[Byleth]

Birthright : Normal/Phoenix

Conquest: Normal/Phoenix

Revelations: Lunatic/Casual

because Revelations is the true end, just play the other path casually so you know the basic

[CompteSecours]

Play Hard, then Lunatic for both routes

[MonkeyCheez3K]

Birthright : Normal/Phoenix

Conquest: Normal/Phoenix

Revelations: Lunatic/Casual

because Revelations is the true end, just play the other path casually so you know the basic

I'm sorry, but for someone who has beaten Lunatic+ in Awakening you are suggesting him to play with Phoenix mode on? I just cannot imagine that being an appropriate tip.

Since I haven't played Fates yet, I cannot answer your question, Radiance, but my guts tell me you should play Hard/Classic on Hoshido and then see from there if you need it easier for Nohr, as it is harder than Hoshido,.Revelations would probably be similar to Hoshido. I'll play them all on Hard/Classic, as I did with Awakening, which was rather easy except for the same turn reinforcements (trial and error bs).

[CocoaGalaxy]

My own recommendations:

Hoshido: Hard/Lunatic/Classic

Normal isn't necessarily easy, but Hard is at least "a decent" challenge. Lunatic isn't ridiculously difficult either, really.

Nohr: Hard/Lunatic Classic

Normal isn't really easy. Hard is either somewhat difficult, or not too difficult. Lunatic itself isn't too ridiculous, but it might be a bit much to handle straight away

Revelations: Hard/Lunatic Classic

Normal isn't necessarily easy. Hard isn't too difficult, though it's not a walk in the park either. Lunatic is still ok, but it depends, possibly. Still not too much to handle.

General Opinions:

Normal: Difficult for beginners, (comparatively) easy for experienced fire emblem players. If you can handle FE13L+ this would be a total joke...mostly....

Hard: Challenging for experienced players, but still a far cry from FE11/12/13L(R/+) modes

Lunatic: More challenging for experienced players, but still not quite at the level of FE11/12/13L(R/+) modes

Nohr>Revelations=Hoshido

The (synthetic I.E Numbers) gap between Normal and Hard is greater than the gap between Hard and Lunatic.

Hoshido N>H: A few select enemies (usually bosses) get new skills. Increased enemy count (up to 2.5x in some cases). Some enemies have increased inventory (E.G. Javelins).Unpromoted enemies get +2 in a stat or two, promoted enemies get larger (+3/5) increases in a few stats

Hoshido H>L: Not many changes. Mostly additional enemies

Nohr N>H: About half or more enemies gain skills. Slight (1-3) increase in stats across the board. More enemies.

Nohr H>L: Additional skills for enemies. A few more enemies

Revelations N>H: Enemy stat increase (4-8)

Revelations H>L: Enemy stat increase (2-5)

Edited January 11, 2016 by CocoaGalaxy

[Jagged Jagen]

I have yet to play the game, but my personal recommendation is that you start on Lunatic Classic for each. The reasons why:

1. You can always turn down the difficulty to hard/normal if you find the game too challenging. However, if you find lower difficulties too easy, then you'll have to start from the beginning again to play higher difficulties.

2. You seem to have a great deal of experience with the series

3. From what I've heard (don't quote me on it), Birthright and Revelations Lunatic is about the halfway point between Awakening Hard and Lunatic.

[Radiance]

Think I will do hard mode for all routes. Btw Phoenix mode is such a joke, they made the game hella easy with that. I will do Lunatic after I do hard. Thanks for your input guys

[Dwlr]

Start on Lunatic for all 3 routes so you can't use knowledge from the previous lower difficulty runs to make the Lunatic runs easier. Classic mode for all the first playthroughs again for he difficulty factor that way you can't adjust the way you play before hand to keep everybody alive and have to do it the first time through to get that character. After that you can do your lunatic plus routes or casual runs for that "perfect" file when you simply don't want to bother with Classic when getting everybody where you want them. (if you do a file like that)

[CocoaGalaxy]

There is no lunatic plus in this game

[Dwlr]

There is no lunatic plus in this game

I've been actively avoiding news about the game in-case of spoilers so that I was not aware, I'd still recommend they start at the top and go down if need be though.

[gayserbeam]

This was my preference:

Birthright: Lunatic, Classic or Casual

Birthright's Lunatic is really nicely balanced. You can still use who you want and use your own playstyle, but the fragile units and tough enemies mean that the threat of death is always there. Probably my favorite route in that respect.

Conquest: Hard, Classic or Casual

Lunatic Conquest is a little limiting because Conquest has this problem where it gives you several "meh" units early on then effectively makes them obsolete by introducing several powerful prepomotes mid-game. You'll end up relying on the standard Effie / Xander / Leo / Camilla most of the time. Hard mode gives you more freedom with less frustration.

Revelation: Lunatic, Casual

Revelations isn't super difficult but you are given several awfully underleveled units late game and Casual lets you safely use them for something without babying them. Getting a handful of paper mache units to hide in the corner every midgame chapter gets old fast.

[Radiance]

This was my preference:

Birthright: Lunatic, Classic or Casual

Birthright's Lunatic is really nicely balanced. You can still use who you want and use your own playstyle, but the fragile units and tough enemies mean that the threat of death is always there. Probably my favorite route in that respect.

Conquest: Hard, Classic or Casual

Lunatic Conquest is a little limiting because Conquest has this problem where it gives you several "meh" units early on then effectively makes them obsolete by introducing several powerful prepomotes mid-game. You'll end up relying on the standard Effie / Xander / Leo / Camilla most of the time. Hard mode gives you more freedom with less frustration.

Revelation: Lunatic, Casual

Revelations isn't super difficult but you are given several awfully underleveled units late game and Casual lets you safely use them for something without babying them. Getting a handful of paper mache units to hide in the corner every midgame chapter gets old fast.

That makes sense. I might do that.

[Solkia]

so was Awakening's Lunatic mode just badly designed or something? I would never recommend that mode in awakening but I've yet to try fates

[CocoaGalaxy]

so was Awakening's Lunatic mode just badly designed or something? I would never recommend that mode in awakening but I've yet to try fates

Fates is more fairly designed.

In all honesty it depends....like if you're an experienced FE player the harder difficulties aren't completely insurmountable.

It might be a bit subjective since different players can tolerate different things

(FE11 Lunatic, FE12 Lunatic Reverse, FE13 Lunatic Plus, after those three, FE14 Lunatic is largely speaking a cakewalk)

[Loki Laufeyson]

I usually play the lowest difficulty first to evaluate the maps then the next difficulty up for a better challenge.

Thats how i roll. I play the lowest end and get a feel for the game and then ramp it up, or try something new next time.

Think I will do hard mode for all routes. Btw Phoenix mode is such a joke, they made the game hella easy with that. I will do Lunatic after I do hard. Thanks for your input guys

That sounds like a safe bet. I hear Hard mode for IK and Birthright are pretty brisk, but not extremely difficult.

[Eriotto]

Think I will do hard mode for all routes. Btw Phoenix mode is such a joke, they made the game hella easy with that. I will do Lunatic after I do hard. Thanks for your input guys

Well don't take phoenix mode seriously when you're doing Story, if you want to grind characters, mostly underleveled ones use this to grind, not faster. I actually like this post-game grind mechanic for maxing characters, i was always skipping every fight after story so this is nice for me, and exping underleveled characters on weaker enemies wasn't nice on hard or harder difficult in awakening cause of cost of boxes. if you were about to lvl up underleveled characters you usually problem to get gold for'em without dlc, or at least i had.

Do you think i can do well on every hard-mode when i only completed awakening on hard-classic mode? I didn't wanted to even try Lunatic one cause of grind, hate that awakening issue. :s

[nyainou]

Do you think i can do well on every hard-mode when i only completed awakening on hard-classic mode? I didn't wanted to even try Lunatic one cause of grind, hate that awakening issue. :s

You'll be fine. Along with your prior experience, you'll learn things as you play these games too. You can just evolve and adapt as the situation needs it. :p

[Eriotto]

You'll be fine. Along with your prior experience, you'll learn things as you play these games too. You can just evolve and adapt as the situation needs it. :p

Got it' i'll do eventually lunatic if i feel like it, as i said grinding on awakening was too much for me to do lunatic there, at some point i felt like i can't do anything and i can't even grind so yeah, fun. XD