With what should you keep in mind when playing fe10 if you have not played FE9?

[NewDisplayName]

With what should you keep in mind when playing fe10 if you have not played FE9?

[Tessie Spoon]

Gameplay-wise, not much; little has changed between FE9 and 10 in that regard. Tier 3 classes, overall more-reliable units, fairly restrictive resources.

In story? Enough is explained for you to get the gist of what happened in FE9, even if Ike and company were unfairly portrayed as villains early on.

[BrightBow]

The localisation renamed the difficulty levels. Easy Mode is actually Normal Mode. Normal Mode is actually Hard Mode and Hard Mode is actually Maniac. Dumbest... localisation change... ever.

The game features several separate armies that are playable at different parts in the story, each with their own units, money reserves and item storages. Depending on events characters might switch between armies. Nothing will ever get lost forever, though.

When player-controlled armies fight each other, defeating the other PCs will not actually kill them. So no need to hold back. Same goes if they appear as NPC allies. Well, unless there is an objective that says that the unit has to be kept alive.

The Tellius games feature yellow units. Yellow units are your allies. You can't control them directly but you can give them orders.

Make sure to always check the Info Conversations in the Base menu. You might miss out on some items and characters otherwise.

The Shop always has some special offers. These offers change with every chapter, so never forget to check them out.

The game features ledges that you can climb. Units that attack from above have a massive advantage.

Mounted units have less movement in indoor levels. They still have Canto, though.

Dragon Knights are not vulnerable to Arrows and Wind Magic like other fliers. Instead, they are vulnerable to Thunder magic.

The game has a mechanic called Bonus Exp. Bonus EXP is rewarded for optional side objectives during chapters. BEXP can be used in the base menu to raise your units, similar to the arena in FE12. If a unit levels up through BEXP, they will always raise in 3 different stats. No more, no less.

Edited February 26, 2016 by BrightBow

[Seanp12]

I played FE10 first with little knowledge of FE9. (I actually still haven't played FE9.) I had no trouble, but I did find it disappointing to learn that the first two parts are basically a waste of time, since the Dawn Brigade and the Crimean knights get turned into sideshows by the Greil Mercenaries. I wanted Nolan to get a personality.

[PKSlowpoke]

That you should have probably played FE9 first.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I played FE10 first myself, and really enjoyed it. When I finally got around to playing Path of Radiance, it felt like a prequel - many of the general details, I knew, but I had the chance to see them under a more detailed lens. BrightBow gives great advice about the peculiarities of Radiant Dawn, but let me add a few more:

Easy and Medium difficulties feature a "Battle Save" option, which lets you save every turn. By using it, you can avoid having to redo the whole chapter whenever anyone dies. Of course, you're free not to use it.

Hard mode doesn't feature Battle Save, only Suspend points (one-time use). Also, On top of the higher stats and enemy presence. Also, there's no weapon triangle (as in, Sword users don't get a Hit/Avo boost against axes). Hard [Maniac] Mode is brutal, especially on earlier chapters, and I would recommend against it for your first time in Tellius.

Forging works differently than in the DS and 3DS games. Rather than improving an existing weapon, you basically build a weapon from scratch. Also, you can improve a forged weapon's stats, at random, using a coin.

Unique to Tellius are the Laguz, a shape-shifting race that normally show up in human-like form, but fight transformed into an animal-like form. The three main groups are Beasts, Birds, and Dragons. They're sort of similar to Manaketes, but rather than using Stones, they transform according to a gauge.

Radiant Dawn's support conversations are one of its weakest elements. Anyone can support anyone else, but they're just one-liners with little to no depth. These are tied to Buddy supports, which boost Atk/Def/Hit/Avo, while crit rates are boosted by innate "Bond" supports (typically shared by siblings or close allies).

Skills! Every unit has, or can have, skills. These affect a unit's abilities in battle (examples including increasing crit, hitting multiple types [Astra], restoring HP upon hit [sol] and preventing enemy crits [Fortune]). Every skill has a cost, and no unit can have more skills than their cost allotment. Some come on units free - these can be removed, and added to a new unit, but then their cost comes into effect.

That's all I can think of now. Radiant Dawn is a really fun (and really long) game, and I enjoyed it heartily without playing Path of Radiance (also a really good game, if you get the chance).

[sirmola]

THere are actualy features in FE10 that only unlock if you have a completed FE9 save file on a game-cube memory card plugged into your wii. (certain items transfer, some characters can get stat bonuses, and some cutscenes may unlock, depending on what you did in fe9).THat being said, there is a lot in FE10 (including two characters and several cutscenes) which only unlocks on a second play-through anyway, so you can do a play-through now, and come back latter with a gamecube memory card to do a second play-through to get all the obscure cutscenes. Note that Some FE10 discs freeze up if the gamecube includes save data from fe9's easy mode (although latter discs fixed this bug).

Edited June 9, 2016 by sirmola