Hardest & frustrating FE games ever

[Magical Glace]

You have many horse units because the maps are big and horses have so much of mobility so of course you're to expect horses here as it makes a lot of sense.

As for balance problems, Fates fixes the balance issues even though there are some minor issues here and there.

Ok..and just how is that suppose to prompt me to retry the damn level over again inorder to get the best ending? Does it say game over? Does the whole thing end like that? Just how exactly?

Because the game is basically saying "Oh, you aren't going somewhere"

The game actively encourages getting all the weapons. It's basically saying "you aren't going to get Illia's anymore" in that line.

"Arguing in favor of FE4 with "FE6's maps are long" isn't really sensible? FE4's maps are longer by a good margin, and they're often even more draggy than 6's (at least imo)."

The main issue that I have with the maps in FE6 is how big the maps are for something that's made on a handheld. Now I understand that there are very hardcore people who can take a lot of time to play this kind of thing but...i dunno, I guess I find it difficult for long maps being on a handheld cause like its basically a console type game being on a handheld.

I agree that such long maps in FE4 can drag at times which is why you have battle saves there. Chapters are shortened to compensate for such lengthy maps. Even the prologue is fairly long.

FE6 gives you suspend saves. You can stop in the middle of any GBA map and come back later.

"Not going to argue ambush spawns aren't cheap, since admittedly they are. The presence of just reinforcements, however, isn't really cheap."

Oh really? Explain the atrocity that Chapter 21 has. I'd rather play Chapter 23 10 times than that horrible chapter!

ngl I never had much trouble with Chapter 21.

"The arena is much more useful than a quick buck if you choose to exploit it. It's free unlimited EXP and Gold if you stall there. Which admittedly can take out a lot of challenge."

Yeah...good luck grinding units which if you face a tough opponent kills you like in one blow....had to retry again after Rutger lost from a swordsmaster.....

Take lower bets then lol. You can back out of high bets that are more likely to kill you and try for a lower one.

The conversations themselves are a matter of opinion, so not going to argue. There are, however, some practical supports Gameplaywise in FE6 (Roy/Wolt, Roy/Lilina, Allen/Lance, and Clarine/Rutger pop to mind). Roy/Lilina in particular is the fastest support in the game, 56+4 is basically instant C with high growth to boot.

So why not apply that to all units? Why is it that only two units get fast supports?

Those were just examples. Almost everyone has at least one decent speed support.

"Because making both be good would be broken?

Like FE6 has balance problems but that's not it."

Then what is it then? Clearly the rooster has several issues that you face throughtout. You keep saying that its not the issue with the character balance when majority of the balance IS the character balance.

Ping explained quite well.

Some units are outright worse than others of the same class in pretty much every way (such as Wendy vs Bors). Then there's some classes being outright better than others.

It has nothing to do with high base low growth vs low base high growth. It's far more to do with jointime and trainability.

The RNG isn't really FE6's fault. It's... a random number generator, so if there's a chance, it can happen. 94% isn't an instant hit and 5% isn't an instant miss. That's true for all FE games.

Isn't random number generator suppose to be for leveling up?

FE uses RNG for a lot of things, including levels. The other things the series uses it for are hitting, critting, and some skill activation. (and in FE13 dual strike/guard).

"As for axes, personally, I think the lower hit rates helps counteract the fact Lances/Axes get easily available 1-2 range weapons when Swords don't. It's a problem for them, but it gives swords a boost it needs to stand out in spite of that glaring flaw.

Of course, weapon balancing was at its best in FE10 imo, because it's the only FE that was "shit, swords need something to help them do range" and added weapons to fix that."

You do get 1-2 range swords...problem is that to make good use of them, you need great magic users who can use swords like that and this game doesn't seem to have magic users that can use swords.

ALL 2 range swords in FE6 are limited. One of them (the Light brand) isn't affected by Str at range and by the time you get it enemies have enough Res to suppress its 10 Mgt. One is locked to Roy, and the last can't even be obtained outside trial maps.

Axes and Lances, meanwhile, do have an available 2 range option.

"Because RNG. It's not supposed to be impossible for either to happen and its naturally a gamble. Do not blame these happenings on 6 specifically because that's rather unfair.

If anything, true hit makes the RNG player favored in 6."

Ok a good point. But that still doesn't defend the statement that axe users have low hit rates and its not like any other FE game where hit rates regardless of what weapon you use is fairly balanced unlike here where it isn't.

Again, it can be seen as a way to help swords stand out with their terrible 2 range option.

A lot of it is also making poor skill stats on axes stand out more, since axe users with good skill (like Enchidna) don't have much problem.

Roy's a terrible unit, but that has nothing to do with where he was born and the situation he was thrust into. Roy's the heir of Pherae because he's Eliwood's kid, that's how thrones work. Hector left him in charge of Lycia's Army because he was the only healthy male of status around at the time.

What's more, Roy being given the status of leader of the Etrurian Army is a good decision for them. Because he's actually talented at leading and rational, and by that point had already proven that.

Leadership has NOTHING to do with his poor unit ability.

Actually, it kinda does. If you're very own lord is incapable of taking more than 1 hit, then you're leader himself isn't even worth being a leader because of it. It just shows how much of effort he trained with Celicia and yet, that didn't do him any good. He makes Seliph look like the better leader.

"Not to mention that it also makes the story a bit jarring. People praise the living hell out of him when Rutger and Dieck should get all the credit."

No, it does not.

Being a leader is not about physical strength. It's about the mental strength, rational thought, and charisma, which are things Roy has.

People praise him because he was able to lead his comrades to victory, working together with them to the goal. Not because he did everything himself.

"Again, if you're trying to advocate Genealogy over FE6, how is long maps a valid complaint in FE4's favor? FE6's maps are shorter."

Very simple, FE4 is a console game but FE6 isn't. The maps in FE6 drag very often compared to FE4. While FE4 has long maps, its better because

1. Units are balanced and you get serviceable ones at the right times.

2. You have battle saves which make the experience more tolerable than FE6. In the latter, you HAVE to beat the chapter in one sitting with no save states and while you can argue that that IS the point of FE classic, then balance the game right to even agree with that point....think about that for a second. Atleast if it was something like Birthright, i can put up with it but in the end, its like a beta version of Conquest only ending up being more harder than Conquest. Atleast Conquest has casual mode unlike FE6 here.

Suspends? You don't have to do FE6 maps in one sitting. You can't make permanent saves in the middle of fights in 6, but that's true for most FE's except FE10's lower two and FE13 Casual.

"I mean they were willing to localize FE13's bullshit that is Luna+, and FE6 Normal isn't even that hard."

That's your perspective. But for me, it turned out to be even HARDER than Conquest.

How is FE6 Normal hard? It's a pretty average difficulty overall.

Most of FE6's balance problems (with a few exceptions) are not nearly as notable on Normal. Hard is the balance problem.

"The reason it was passed up was more likely the presence of the beginner catered FE7's development, since FE6 isn't a good entry point, if it was localized it would be the first. If FE6 was remade now? I'd say it'd be localized.

The game was victim of bad timing."

No it wasn't. Infact the game had the opportunity to be localized. The reason its not is that it is notoriously difficult for both FE standards and for your typical TRPG game out there. Its probably the amount of criticism that FE6 had that made Nintendo release FE7 instead which sold more than FE6.

As far as Japanese sales go (since that is the only region we can take into account for FE6's sales) FE6 is the best selling FEGBA game and as far as I'm aware viewed more highly than FE7 for that region.

There's a difference between localizing a hard game as an entry point and localizing it later down the line. FE6, if it was to be localized, would be the first FE released in the west. It's not an amazing way to ease a large new audience in when a game designed for that purpose was in development.

[Harvey]

Because the game is basically saying "Oh, you aren't going somewhere"

The game actively encourages getting all the weapons. It's basically saying "you aren't going to get Illia's anymore" in that line.

FE6 gives you suspend saves. You can stop in the middle of any GBA map and come back later.

ngl I never had much trouble with Chapter 21.

Ok so you want me to be fine with the idea of having to spend ridiculous hours on a handheld game that can rather be spent on a console game? The suspend really doesn't help that much here because its not permanent. I understand that mentality can be given an excuse for older FE games before this but you are forgetting some thing here, this is on a HANDHELD! Sure, there's suspend saves and all but really if you just have to restart the same chapter over again for not only screwing up that one you got careless placing but you also have to get the damn map right to get the legendary weapon, yeah...that's fun right?

Take lower bets then lol. You can back out of high bets that are more likely to kill you and try for a lower one.

Ok fair enough. Didn't think of it that way.

Those were just examples. Almost everyone has at least one decent speed support.

Yeah, too bad they still take forever in doing so unless you game break the arena which is also hard to do.

Ping explained quite well.

Some units are outright worse than others of the same class in pretty much every way (such as Wendy vs Bors). Then there's some classes being outright better than others.

It has nothing to do with high base low growth vs low base high growth. It's far more to do with jointime and trainability.

Oh then you go back to my previous point that majority of the units start at low levels at WRONG times making them difficult and frustrating to train?

ALL 2 range swords in FE6 are limited. One of them (the Light brand) isn't affected by Str at range and by the time you get it enemies have enough Res to suppress its 10 Mgt. One is locked to Roy, and the last can't even be obtained outside trial maps.

Axes and Lances, meanwhile, do have an available 2 range option.

Again, it can be seen as a way to help swords stand out with their terrible 2 range option.

A lot of it is also making poor skill stats on axes stand out more, since axe users with good skill (like Enchidna) don't have much problem.

Congratulations! You just mentioned one of the flaws that FE6 has which is pointless 2 range weapons that don't do as much damage as you want them to because of said thing you just mentioned.

The very fact that you also don't get the Spear and the Tomahawks as well also adds the spice of the game's difficulty don't you think? Sure, their hit rates are still low but the idea of not being able to get them hurts more doesn't it? I rather use tomahawk than that cheap hand axe that I'm stuck with and the same goes for spear. Rather use that than that lousy Javelin.

No, it does not.

Being a leader is not about physical strength. It's about the mental strength, rational thought, and charisma, which are things Roy has.

People praise him because he was able to lead his comrades to victory, working together with them to the goal. Not because he did everything himself.

Oh and I guess the other lords like Ike, Marth, Sigurd, Hector and Eliwood don't have any physical strength in them but more on the mental strength especially when one of them is even so damn stupid enough to skip a promotion because screw physical strength right?

Praising Roy and taking Roy seriously in the story is really a hard thing to do except for the end chapters because Roy is pathetic as a unit till the very end. How the hell can you take him seriously in the story if he can't even face the bosses except for the last one? And his sprite doesn't even change much.

I do agree that I can take him seriously at the end because he serves a good purpose there. But before that, he's lousy and you don't even get to see him take several actions except that one time where Bern made an attempt to invade the whole of Lycia and Roy attempts to commit suicide by beating them single handedly. But that's just it and even that part is a joke because of how the Eturian Army came to rescue.

How is FE6 Normal hard? It's a pretty average difficulty overall.

Most of FE6's balance problems (with a few exceptions) are not nearly as notable on Normal. Hard is the balance problem.

Again, your perspective so your judgement. To the other, its the opposite.

As far as Japanese sales go (since that is the only region we can take into account for FE6's sales) FE6 is the best selling FEGBA game and as far as I'm aware viewed more highly than FE7 for that region.

There's a difference between localizing a hard game as an entry point and localizing it later down the line. FE6, if it was to be localized, would be the first FE released in the west. It's not an amazing way to ease a large new audience in when a game designed for that purpose was in development.

So a hundred thousand copies difference...big deal. That's always a trend in the business department, you can't keep getting high in the bar as it once goes high, it has to come down hence why Nintendo keeps following the Blue ocean.

Ghee I have an idea, So if FE6 could have the localization potential to being the first game, why couldn't NoA dum down the game further instead? After all its the very same reason why Fusion never got a hard mode in the west unlike in Japan and why Lost Levels got released on the SNES instead because of it having a save feature right?

[Magical Glace]

Ok so you want me to be fine with the idea of having to spend ridiculous hours on a handheld game that can rather be spent on a console game? The suspend really doesn't help that much here because its not permanent. I understand that mentality can be given an excuse for older FE games before this but you are forgetting some thing here, this is on a HANDHELD! Sure, there's suspend saves and all but really if you just have to restart the same chapter over again for not only screwing up that one you got careless placing but you also have to get the damn map right to get the legendary weapon, yeah...that's fun right?

Your previous argument was "you had to do it in one sitting." Which isn't true. You can take breaks.

In fact, the GBA games conveniently autosaved battles for quick suspend.

Yeah, too bad they still take forever in doing so unless you game break the arena which is also hard to do.

Admittedly, there are other factors. Namely join time. However, a +2 or +3 speed is a respectable enough speed.

However, FE6 has the strictest anti-support grind in the GBA games, so that may be the reason you're having trouble.

Oh then you go back to my previous point that majority of the units start at low levels at WRONG times making them difficult and frustrating to train?

Majority?

Wendy and Sophia are the only next to unusable units in the game.

Fir joins in Axeland with HM boosts.

Lilina can easy attack from cover.

Congratulations! You just mentioned one of the flaws that FE6 has which is pointless 2 range weapons that don't do as much damage as you want them to because of said thing you just mentioned.

The very fact that you also don't get the Spear and the Tomahawks as well also adds the spice of the game's difficulty don't you think? Sure, their hit rates are still low but the idea of not being able to get them hurts more doesn't it? I rather use tomahawk than that cheap hand axe that I'm stuck with and the same goes for spear. Rather use that than that lousy Javelin.

"Don't do much damage?"

You can do pretty good damage if the unit has Str. The Light Brand isn't affected by Str at range which severely hampers its ranged ability, on top of poor availability.

Lances and Axes do not deal with this. They have ranged weapons affected by Str at range, allowing them to stay in use even later in the game.

Tbh I never really cared for Spears/Tomahawks, so I never actually noticed that and never cared. However, the player never gets a sword equivalent because said equivalent doesn't exist either.

Oh and I guess the other lords like Ike, Marth, Sigurd, Hector and Eliwood don't have any physical strength in them but more on the mental strength especially when one of them is even so damn stupid enough to skip a promotion because screw physical strength right?

Praising Roy and taking Roy seriously in the story is really a hard thing to do except for the end chapters because Roy is pathetic as a unit till the very end. How the hell can you take him seriously in the story if he can't even face the bosses except for the last one? And his sprite doesn't even change much.

I do agree that I can take him seriously at the end because he serves a good purpose there. But before that, he's lousy and you don't even get to see him take several actions except that one time where Bern made an attempt to invade the whole of Lycia and Roy attempts to commit suicide by beating them single handedly. But that's just it and even that part is a joke because of how the Eturian Army came to rescue.

You completely missed my point.

You can have physical strength and be a good leader. That's not a problem. But you don't NEED it.

Because the game never frames Roy as having taken down the bosses himself (except one point in the credits where he's fighting Zephiel, who he can feasibly fight since his promo boosts are amazing). He's framed as a leader, the one who guided everyone else to take down Bern.

That's completely different from doing things all by himself.

As for the Etrurian Army, they came because ROY ASKED THEM TO. Roy knew that even if Ostia was temporarily taken back, Bern would come back and the Lycians would not be able to hold out forever. So rather than having his Army doom themselves defending Ostia, he contacted Cecilia in hopes that Ostia can receive better protection. He knew there was no shame in asking for help, and put those under his command first when doing so. That's a mark of a good leader.

Again, your perspective so your judgement. To the other, its the opposite.

Enlighten me on how FE6 Normal is difficult compared to... Let's go with FE7 Eliwood Hard, which I consider just slightly harder.

So a hundred thousand copies difference...big deal. That's always a trend in the business department, you can't keep getting high in the bar as it once goes high, it has to come down hence why Nintendo keeps following the Blue ocean.

That's still a difference. You claimed that FE7 sold better than FE6. Limiting it to Japan, that's not the case. If we didn't limit it to Japan, then FE7 has an unfair advantage because it was made available to a much wider market. We can't compare Japanese sales of a Japan-only game and worldwide sales of a non-Japan only game and expect that to be considered fair to the former.

Ghee I have an idea, So if FE6 could have the localization potential to being the first game, why couldn't NoA dum down the game further instead? After all its the very same reason why Fusion never got a hard mode in the west unlike in Japan and why Lost Levels got released on the SNES instead because of it having a save feature right?

It wouldn't really be FE6 anymore if it was dumbed down too much. They could add an easy mode, I suppose, but fixing 6's problems isn't lowering enemy stats.

I'm not really familiar with the games you mentioned, though, I'm shit at platforming and I've never heard of this "Fusion."

FE10, however, was the first game whose localization had no difficulty changes.

[Augestein]

Your previous argument was "you had to do it in one sitting." Which isn't true. You can take breaks.

In fact, the GBA games conveniently autosaved battles for quick suspend.

However, it needs to be said that the autosaving versus battle saves is a thing. Battle Saves made a log of where you left off, so if you made a mistake later on down the line, you could return back to that state before you erred. The same cannot be said for Fire Emblem 6.

[Harvey]

Your previous argument was "you had to do it in one sitting." Which isn't true. You can take breaks.

In fact, the GBA games conveniently autosaved battles for quick suspend.

You are still missing my point. Autosaves aren't permanent saves which FE6 REALLY needed since its on a handheld. I don't know how hard FE7 or 8 are since I've yet to play them but seeing from the comments, I think I shouldn't have too much of hard crap that FE6 often pulls.

Admittedly, there are other factors. Namely join time. However, a +2 or +3 speed is a respectable enough speed.

However, FE6 has the strictest anti-support grind in the GBA games, so that may be the reason you're having trouble.

So why are you defending that flaw if it is flawed in the first place? Earlier you mentioned that every support is decent enough and now you're saying that it does have issues?

Majority?

Wendy and Sophia are the only next to unusable units in the game.

Fir joins in Axeland with HM boosts.

Lilina can easy attack from cover.

Please don't compare HM and NM just to defend the unit's stats. If the unit is bad in NM, then the player will most likely not use that same unit again in HM either unless if for some reason, he/she wants to play it differently. If neither Gonzales or Geese are that good in NM, how can they be motivated to be used again in HM?

And yes. There's majority of them. You have Wendy, Sophia, Chad, Cath, Noah, Treck, Juno, Shanna, Tate, Fae, Wolt, Zealot, Celicia, Bors, Dorothy, Sue, Dayan, Gonzales, Geese(as much as I like him...), Bath, Wade, Lot, Marcus, Ellen, and Merlinus(The character who is simply pointless to use in battle unless you really overuse weapons to such an extent.) That about sums up the major weak units you get here.

The only reason that the game is bearable is because it has good units that you get at the right times. I swear that Rutger is the only way you can clear majority of the chapters the moment he becomes a Swordmaster.

You completely missed my point.

You can have physical strength and be a good leader. That's not a problem. But you don't NEED it.

Because the game never frames Roy as having taken down the bosses himself (except one point in the credits where he's fighting Zephiel, who he can feasibly fight since his promo boosts are amazing). He's framed as a leader, the one who guided everyone else to take down Bern.

That's completely different from doing things all by himself.

As for the Etrurian Army, they came because ROY ASKED THEM TO. Roy knew that even if Ostia was temporarily taken back, Bern would come back and the Lycians would not be able to hold out forever. So rather than having his Army doom themselves defending Ostia, he contacted Cecilia in hopes that Ostia can receive better protection. He knew there was no shame in asking for help, and put those under his command first when doing so. That's a mark of a good leader.

Umm...of course you need a lord as a physical strength/strength that is enough to be even a mage/sage. Tell me one lord who is pathetically weak like Roy...cause I can't think of any. If Roy makes any plans, then Roy should face the responsibility of executing those plans which in gameplay wise, he doesn't making him just plain glass till the end game. And no, Rutger can single handedly beat the hell out of the Bern army except for Zephiel so even there its a joke.

No..you're wrong that a leader doesn't need physical strength because it is needed, you're in a battlefield, you have to face enemy units so you are bound to need it. Marth, Sigurd, Leif, Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, Erika, Ellam, Micaiah, Ike, Chrom, and especially even Corrin all have great physical strength because they will be in a battlefield and they should expect to fight their enemies no matter how powerful they are and Roy is unfortunate because he spent so much time studying rather than actually spending time on a battle field training with weapons and what not.

Enlighten me on how FE6 Normal is difficult compared to... Let's go with FE7 Eliwood Hard, which I consider just slightly harder.

That's still a difference. You claimed that FE7 sold better than FE6. Limiting it to Japan, that's not the case. If we didn't limit it to Japan, then FE7 has an unfair advantage because it was made available to a much wider market. We can't compare Japanese sales of a Japan-only game and worldwide sales of a non-Japan only game and expect that to be considered fair to the former.

It wouldn't really be FE6 anymore if it was dumbed down too much. They could add an easy mode, I suppose, but fixing 6's problems isn't lowering enemy stats.

I haven't played FE7 yet so I can't comment on that regard. But for the sales point, I was talking about how its natural for sales to go lower and lower and then up again and vise versa because that's just the trend in the business and that's how it works. Never mind where it sold lower and higher...

of course it can. I mean, if you played FE gaiden, there's a cheat on easy mode where you get weak enemies and get twice the EXP than you usually will get.

[Gradivus.]

Autosaves aren't permanent saves which FE6 REALLY needed since its on a handheld.

How does that make sense?

Wendy and Sophia are the only next to unusable units in the game.

And yes. There's majority of them. You have Wendy, Sophia, Chad, Cath, Noah, Treck, Juno, Shanna, Tate, Fae, Wolt, Zealot, Celicia, Bors, Dorothy, Sue, Dayan, Gonzales, Geese(as much as I like him...), Bath, Wade, Lot, Marcus, Ellen, and Merlinus

Also, you might have thrown your credibility into the wastebin here.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Harvey]

How does that make sense?

You are playing this game on a handheld which is made to be played on the go....not something like a console game where you need to spend hours upon hours beating maps.

How can you not understand this?

[ping]

Please don't compare HM and NM just to defend the unit's stats. If the unit is bad in NM, then the player will most likely not use that same unit again in HM either unless if for some reason, he/she wants to play it differently. If neither Gonzales or Geese are that good in NM, how can they be motivated to be used again in HM?

And yes. There's majority of them. You have Wendy, Sophia, Chad, Cath, Noah, Treck, Juno, Shanna, Tate, Fae, Wolt, Zealot, Celicia, Bors, Dorothy, Sue, Dayan, Gonzales, Geese(as much as I like him...), Bath, Wade, Lot, Marcus, Ellen, and Merlinus(The character who is simply pointless to use in battle unless you really overuse weapons to such an extent.) That about sums up the major weak units you get here.

The only reason that the game is bearable is because it has good units that you get at the right times. I swear that Rutger is the only way you can clear majority of the chapters the moment he becomes a Swordmaster.

No to all three paragraphs.

First: HM does shake up the balancing between units. Fir in NM (as Irysa correctly pointed out to me recently) is pretty bad, probably about as bad or even worse than Oujay, but with her HM bonuses she is a decent unit. The gap between Deke and Rutger is definitely smaller on normal mode, where Deke's base stats are actually comparable to Rutger's despite joining earlier.

Second: Gradivus alread pointed out the characters from your list that are actually good. I'd even say that Wendy and Sophia, as well as maybe Barth and Wade (although he has his uses very early on), are the only ones that are actually borderline unusable. Some of them might be outclassed by a better unit (Treck and Noah compared to Alance comes to mind), but they can still do alright.

Third: I didn't promote Rutger on my last playthrough. ;) Outside of ch.8x I didn't really have trouble with any boss.

Umm...of course you need a lord as a physical strength/strength that is enough to be even a mage/sage. Tell me one lord who is pathetically weak like Roy...cause I can't think of any. If Roy makes any plans, then Roy should face the responsibility of executing those plans which in gameplay wise, he doesn't making him just plain glass till the end game. And no, Rutger can single handedly beat the hell out of the Bern army except for Zephiel so even there its a joke.

No..you're wrong that a leader doesn't need physical strength because it is needed, you're in a battlefield, you have to face enemy units so you are bound to need it. Marth, Sigurd, Leif, Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, Erika, Ellam, Micaiah, Ike, Chrom, and especially even Corrin all have great physical strength because they will be in a battlefield and they should expect to fight their enemies no matter how powerful they are and Roy is unfortunate because he spent so much time studying rather than actually spending time on a battle field training with weapons and what not.

You're not really making a point here. Whether or not the other FE lords are physically stronger than Roy or not (lol Micaiah) doesn't prove that a lord has to be physically strong or a genius fighter. Storywise, Roy helps Lycia survive and later Etruria win the war because he reads the situations correctly and makes the right calls.

If he hadn't asked Etruria for help against Bern's incursion, the game would have been over before chapter 9.

On the isles, he manages to look through Elphin's disguise, keeps a level head when he realizes that Lycia might be in danger of being attacked again and continues to make sensible decisions what to do about the Etrurian traitors.

When Etruria makes Roy their general in the fight against Bern, they don't do it because they hope for him to personally slay Zephiel, they do it because he has proven earlier that he knows how to use the resources he has to their fullest potential.

You are playing this game on a handheld which is made to be played on the go....not something like a console game where you need to spend hours upon hours beating maps.

How can you not understand this?

That still doesn't really make sense. You aren't forced to play FE6's maps in one go.

It's true that no permanent maps saves can potentially be very frustrating if you lose a unit just before you can end the map. But I don't agree that this is more true for a console game.

So why are you defending that flaw if it is flawed in the first place?

This wasn't directed towards me, but I don't 'defend flaws'. I am very aware that FE6 is not a perfect game - the support system is rather clunky (true for all GBA games, but it shows that FE6 is the first one to try out the new system), the balancing between units is very questionable (even though I like that they don't try to make every single unit viable from start to finish), HM bonuses make that problem even bigger...

But your criticism tends to be exaggerated (like Roy's stats), based on personal preferences (Roy's stats, again, or the handheld thing) or based on falsehoods (like the RNG thing). I can understand if people find FE6 frustrating, even though I personally love the game, but a lot of your reasons that you state as if they were facts just are your personal perspective which I don't agree with. And since you put your opinion on a internet forum, it's fair game to point out disagreement with it. ;)

[Gradivus.]

You are playing this game on a handheld which is made to be played on the go....not something like a console game where you need to spend hours upon hours beating maps.

How can you not understand this?

Your logic revolves around stuff like "Handhelds are compact, so you cannot sit at home and play them for a few hours straight". It doesn't work. You may greatly prefer consoles for longer playing sessions, but that doesn't mean handhelds are /unsuitable/ for them.

I see no logical correlation between the game being on a handheld and needing battle saves over suspend. It's perfectly possible to take a break.

Battle saves make things more convenient because you won't have to restart the whole map after screwing up near the end, but 10.5/14 games so far didn't have battle saves, and FE6 isn't the biggest offender on bullshit restarts because fog of war is lenient and ambush spawns don't tend to be right in your face. It's generally possible to control your risks, especially when you're almost finished with the map. If you don't watch out, the restarts are mostly on you, with some exceptions like getting ambushed by wyverns in Arcadia, but again, there are quite a few games in the series that are worse when it comes to BS resets.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Magical Glace]

I had a big long response almost completely typed up before I had to go to class, but it seems I got beaten to the punch.

So why are you defending that flaw if it is flawed in the first place? Earlier you mentioned that every support is decent enough and now you're saying that it does have issues?

Trust me, I'd never defend the 120 point limit (6's anti-support grind measure), in fact, it's one of my least favorite things about 6. The number of 1+1 supports is pretty bad too.

I was saying almost everyone has a +2/+3 support with a good base with a lover, friend, or sibling, which is pretty decent and workable, at least in my experience.

Also can someone enlighten me on who Bath is.

Like the only character I can think of is Barst from Akaneia.

[Shadow Mir]

Also can someone enlighten me on who Bath is.

Like the only character I can think of is Barst from Akaneia.

They're referring to Barth.

[Magical Glace]

They're referring to Barth.

Oh yeah, him.

You know that guy was pretty unmemorable.

Like Wendy is so bad that she becomes easy to identify for it, but this guy just kinda is.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

Pretty much what people are saying.

I feel, Harvey, that your main criticisms of 6 boil down to "this wasn't like 4", because you give 4 a pass for a lot of things you lambasted 6 with.

You have admitted to not playing a good chunk of the series, so as a friendly heads up: 4 is really the only game in the series like it, so you may not be satisfied with the rest of the series if you compare everything to it.

It's okay to not like 6, though. Happens to be my favorite, but the beautiful thing about FE is that every game IS different.

[Harvey]

This wasn't directed towards me, but I don't 'defend flaws'. I am very aware that FE6 is not a perfect game - the support system is rather clunky (true for all GBA games, but it shows that FE6 is the first one to try out the new system), the balancing between units is very questionable (even though I like that they don't try to make every single unit viable from start to finish), HM bonuses make that problem even bigger...

But your criticism tends to be exaggerated (like Roy's stats), based on personal preferences (Roy's stats, again, or the handheld thing) or based on falsehoods (like the RNG thing). I can understand if people find FE6 frustrating, even though I personally love the game, but a lot of your reasons that you state as if they were facts just are your personal perspective which I don't agree with. And since you put your opinion on a internet forum, it's fair game to point out disagreement with it. ;)

How is my criticism exaggerated if its literally the same thing like how everyone else mentions it? Roy is pathetic till the very end and that is the truth and sorry if this hurts you, but I just can't accept Roy as both a unit lord and as a character because his personality is plain bland. I said that I can only take Roy seriously at the endgame because he is of good use at the end game but only because of the binding blade and that's that.

And I said that balancing units is also bad....pretty much what everyone stated in the game. I even admitted the fact that there are some good units that you get at the right times particularly Dieck and Rutger.

The only exaggeration is the handheld thing but even if you don't have to play the maps in one sitting, the fact that you won't progress anywhere till you beat the maps that can take more than an hour to beat is still frustrating as hell especially when FE6 pulls out a lot of things that can make you rage quick like those random heavenly arrows or the ridiculous reinforcements.

You're not really making a point here. Whether or not the other FE lords are physically stronger than Roy or not (lol Micaiah) doesn't prove that a lord has to be physically strong or a genius fighter. Storywise, Roy helps Lycia survive and later Etruria win the war because he reads the situations correctly and makes the right calls.

If he hadn't asked Etruria for help against Bern's incursion, the game would have been over before chapter 9.

On the isles, he manages to look through Elphin's disguise, keeps a level head when he realizes that Lycia might be in danger of being attacked again and continues to make sensible decisions what to do about the Etrurian traitors.

When Etruria makes Roy their general in the fight against Bern, they don't do it because they hope for him to personally slay Zephiel, they do it because he has proven earlier that he knows how to use the resources he has to their fullest potential.

You are still missing the point that he is still too damn young to be the new prince of Lycia or considered the head of Pharae or Ostia. Mental thoughts aren't enough for a battlefield. Asking help just to protect your own kingdom isn't a smart move either as there are things you simply HAVE to do things on your own. He's still young, he is still inexperienced as a lord and it shows during gameplay and frankly, it plots his role even further when nothing was mentioned to his father Eliwood who from all we know has an illness and that's that.

Roy does all this in story and yet, he is basically a coward in the gameplay till the end. He is so damn pathetic that I'm thankful that Roy's dad somehow got Dieck to be on Roy's side.

And again, I like to stress. Lords are in a BATTLEFIELD. You need BOTH physical strength and mental strength to survive in a BATTLEFIELD. That's just the way it is. No leader in any battlefield would do anything foolish or would let his units go front and let him/herself stand idle and do nothing as the lord ALSO has to DO something in the battle field which sadly, Roy can't do anything on the battlefield until the very end. This even comes to a point that makes me wonder what the hell was Eliwood thinking leaving his son in such dangers in the first place....Not to mention how Roy was even dumb enough to bring Fae alongside.

No to all three paragraphs.

First: HM does shake up the balancing between units. Fir in NM (as Irysa correctly pointed out to me recently) is pretty bad, probably about as bad or even worse than Oujay, but with her HM bonuses she is a decent unit. The gap between Deke and Rutger is definitely smaller on normal mode, where Deke's base stats are actually comparable to Rutger's despite joining earlier.

Second: Gradivus alread pointed out the characters from your list that are actually good. I'd even say that Wendy and Sophia, as well as maybe Barth and Wade (although he has his uses very early on), are the only ones that are actually borderline unusable. Some of them might be outclassed by a better unit (Treck and Noah compared to Alance comes to mind), but they can still do alright.

Third: I didn't promote Rutger on my last playthrough. ;) Outside of ch.8x I didn't really have trouble with any boss.

Oh then if it does shake up the balance, then why not play that mode over normal?

Still, what he highlights is only so few of good units which is totally 7 of what he mentioned. My point still stands that you still have terrible units from that list besides the ones you pointed out.

Pretty much what people are saying.

I feel, Harvey, that your main criticisms of 6 boil down to "this wasn't like 4", because you give 4 a pass for a lot of things you lambasted 6 with.

You have admitted to not playing a good chunk of the series, so as a friendly heads up: 4 is really the only game in the series like it, so you may not be satisfied with the rest of the series if you compare everything to it.

It's okay to not like 6, though. Happens to be my favorite, but the beautiful thing about FE is that every game IS different.

Boy it all has to be on me that my damn perspective of the game is irritating to accept as a comment/review is it? I can't picture majority of people here who would play a game like FE6 which is seriously broken from the start to get go due to it being frustrating and its because of this that the game never got localized because obviously, the game IS difficult.

Conquest is lenient and is more better than what this game will ever be in terms of gameplay ALONE because Conquest has well balanced units unlike FE6 which you get so few and far between.

It still has to be said that even if you don't have to complete maps in one sitting, you still have to spend HOURS or DAYS beating one damn map inorder to make any progress....that alone sound terrible.

Four on the other hand I give it a pass because the devs knew that playing such LONG maps can be a nightmare so the saves are a blessing. The devs didn't do any balance fixing issues in FE6 which got me frustrated from time to time playing new chapters day by day until the very end.

Again, units have serious balance issues in FE6 and that is a fact. Unless you're some pro, the way the game gives you weak units time and time again except for the good ones is irritating. I freaking hate that damn Fir but I used her because many of you seem to think of her as good but he's terrible and can't avoid that often. Rutger's the better unit and its only because he is simply in the right time to show up.

[Shadow Mir]

Four on the other hand I give it a pass because the devs knew that playing such LONG maps can be a nightmare so the saves are a blessing.

That doesn't excuse the maps being bloated to me.

Again, units have serious balance issues in FE6 and that is a fact. Unless you're some pro, the way the game gives you weak units time and time again except for the good ones is irritating. I freaking hate that damn Fir but I used her because many of you seem to think of her as good but he's terrible and can't avoid that often. Rutger's the better unit and its only because he is simply in the right time to show up.

Name one FE game where balance issues aren't a thing. Hint: There aren't any. Also, the fact you're standing by FE4, which is about as badly balanced as FE6, if not worse... That's what I would call hypocrisy. Edited November 23, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Magical Glace]

How is my criticism exaggerated if its literally the same thing like how everyone else mentions it? Roy is pathetic till the very end and that is the truth and sorry if this hurts you, but I just can't accept Roy as both a unit lord and as a character because his personality is plain bland. I said that I can only take Roy seriously at the endgame because he is of good use at the end game but only because of the binding blade and that's that.

You're failing to separate character from stats.

Like Tharja is my #1 least favorite character in the series, but I'll admit she can be a good unit.

You aren't really looking at Roy's canon achievements and bashing them because you're being blinded by his stats.

And I said that balancing units is also bad....pretty much what everyone stated in the game. I even admitted the fact that there are some good units that you get at the right times particularly Dieck and Rutger.

You've exaggerated how bad units are. Multiple times.

Like with statements along the lines of "max of four good units" and listing textbook-Jeigen Marcus as bad.

The only exaggeration is the handheld thing but even if you don't have to play the maps in one sitting, the fact that you won't progress anywhere till you beat the maps that can take more than an hour to beat is still frustrating as hell especially when FE6 pulls out a lot of things that can make you rage quick like those random heavenly arrows or the ridiculous reinforcements.

...So, almost every FE except 10 E/N (Hard removes battle saves in 10), 4, and 13 Casual is frustrating?

Battle saves aren't a staple.

The light arrows aren't particularly dangerous by the time you get to that point in my experience. They do flat ten damage and unless you're really RNG screwed your HP should be more than enough to handle taking one to the face and healing it the next turn.

Reinforcements tend to spawn a bit away from you. And oftentimes, bosses will say something to alert the player (ie Chapter 7, Chapter 12).

You are still missing the point that he is still too damn young to be the new prince of Lycia or considered the head of Pharae or Ostia. Mental thoughts aren't enough for a battlefield. Asking help just to protect your own kingdom isn't a smart move either as there are things you simply HAVE to do things on your own. He's still young, he is still inexperienced as a lord and it shows during gameplay and frankly, it plots his role even further when nothing was mentioned to his father Eliwood who from all we know has an illness and that's that.

...You completely missed the point of Roy asking for help in Ostia.

Roy KNEW the Lycians wouldn't be able to hold out forever. If he didn't ask for help, EVERYONE IN THE ARMY, HIMSELF INCLUDED, WOULD DIE IN VEIN.

Would you want to follow someone too proud to ask for help, causing you to die a pointless death? I know I wouldn't.

Roy does all this in story and yet, he is basically a coward in the gameplay till the end. He is so damn pathetic that I'm thankful that Roy's dad somehow got Dieck to be on Roy's side.

In terms of what Roy canonically tries to do in gameplay, Roy's Sophia supports outline it quite well.

Roy fights with his allies. He can't do everything on his own and fights with them, even though he's well aware that he's in more danger than the others.

And again, I like to stress. Lords are in a BATTLEFIELD. You need BOTH physical strength and mental strength to survive in a BATTLEFIELD. That's just the way it is. No leader in any battlefield would do anything foolish or would let his units go front and let him/herself stand idle and do nothing as the lord ALSO has to DO something in the battle field which sadly, Roy can't do anything on the battlefield until the very end. This even comes to a point that makes me wonder what the hell was Eliwood thinking leaving his son in such dangers in the first place....Not to mention how Roy was even dumb enough to bring Fae alongside.

Again, Roy's Sophia support answers that Roy doesn't act cowardly in combat, even though he knows he's not the greatest.

Eliwood had no choice but to stay behind and let Roy lead in his place. He was very sick and would stand less chance than Roy.

Roy specifically says why Fae comes along with him. If she didn't, she'd be going back to Arcadia by herself, causing much more risk since that leaves her wide open to being captured again.

Oh then if it does shake up the balance, then why not play that mode over normal?

I think pretty much everyone talking to you has played FE6 Hard, possibly more than FE6 Normal.

Still, what he highlights is only so few of good units which is totally 7 of what he mentioned. My point still stands that you still have terrible units from that list besides the ones you pointed out.

FE6 has 54 units playable in the main story (if I counted right).

Of those 54, two (Wendy and Sophia) are definitely nigh unusable, with the possible addition of Barth and Wado.

Of the units you mentioned, Chad, Cath, Ellen, and Merlinus are all utility. I don't personally consider Ellen all that bad of a healer, coming first has its perks and her magic isn't bad. I'm that one weirdo who actually trained Chad on Hard (with the Chapter 4 Fort dump I mentioned a bit ago). His Str growth is surprisingly good, and the EXP boost was nice. He wound up being a crutch for me for a while.

That leaves us with

1. Wendy

2. Sophia

3. Juno

4. Fae

5. Wolt

6. Bors

7. Dorothy

8. Gonzales

9. Geese

10. Barth

11. Wade

12. Lot

That's not a majority of units, that's less than a quarter of them. This is coming from someone who uses Wolt every playthrough because favorite character bias.

Boy it all has to be on me that my damn perspective of the game is irritating to accept as a comment/review is it? I can't picture majority of people here who would play a game like FE6 which is seriously broken from the start to get go due to it being frustrating and its because of this that the game never got localized because obviously, the game IS difficult.

Now you seem to be playing some kind of victim card? We're just trying to point out that you're trying to make the faults look bigger than they actually are.

I'm pretty sure the reason most here never played it was the lack of localization and not the difficulty.

Conquest is lenient and is more better than what this game will ever be in terms of gameplay ALONE because Conquest has well balanced units unlike FE6 which you get so few and far between.

No comment, haven't played.

It still has to be said that even if you don't have to complete maps in one sitting, you still have to spend HOURS or DAYS beating one damn map inorder to make any progress....that alone sound terrible.

You have to spend hours to make progress in any game, though. Not just FE6, not just FE in general.

Maybe it's just me, but I think finally getting through a trouble spot is rather satisfying.

I remember I was pretty pleased when I first beat Morty in DQVI, for example.

Four on the other hand I give it a pass because the devs knew that playing such LONG maps can be a nightmare so the saves are a blessing. The devs didn't do any balance fixing issues in FE6 which got me frustrated from time to time playing new chapters day by day until the very end.

4 is just as horribly balanced as 6. Again, it's a game where magic plot blood and magic plot weapons makes you automatically so much better than those without, same for having a pony.

Again, units have serious balance issues in FE6 and that is a fact. Unless you're some pro, the way the game gives you weak units time and time again except for the good ones is irritating. I freaking hate that damn Fir but I used her because many of you seem to think of her as good but he's terrible and can't avoid that often. Rutger's the better unit and its only because he is simply in the right time to show up.

We're not denying FE6's balance issues.

We're saying you're exaggerating them.

As for Fir, it was pointed out that Fir is much better on Hard than Normal. Those HM boosts are amazing, the terrain and WTA is exploitable to train her when she joins.

And we NEVER said she was better/easier to train than Rutger, we always said the opposite.

[ping]

Saying (or implying) that Roy is physically weaker than a mage is exaggerated. The claim that he's completely helpless until his promotion, too (the Axe Islands are a thing). But a discussion here is pretty pointless because I simply don't agree with your assumption that the leader of a large army has to fight in the front row, making the discussion about how weak Roy is exactly pure shadowboxing.

It doesn't hurt me if you disagree with me, but thank you for your concern. I just state why I don't think you're correct.

And I said that balancing units is also bad....pretty much what everyone stated in the game. I even admitted the fact that there are some good units that you get at the right times particularly Dieck and Rutger.

This discussion started because people didn't agree with this:

Then the game has so many units that are unbalanced in many ways. If their growth rates are bad, their bases are good and if their bases are bad, their growth rates are good....its like this game can't have units that have both of them good except for some of the units that you get at fair times.

I personally find that to be the strongest point about the (otherwise indeed suboptimal) unit balancing in FE6. They try to give different units different roles and while they often don't manage not to make one unit strictly better than the other, many units play their role really well without being overpowered. Marcus, Jerrot, Echidna and Deke are amazing when they join, but they tend to drop slightly (Deke) or hard (Marcus, Jerrot) after a while.

Oh then if it does shake up the balance, then why not play that mode over normal?



Still, what he highlights is only so few of good units which is totally 7 of what he mentioned. My point still stands that you still have terrible units from that list besides the ones you pointed out.

First part: I have no idea what you're getting at.

Second part: OK, lemme see...

Chad: He's a thief, so he isn't really supposed to be a combat unit. On NM, it's still a viable option to train him up so that he doesn't die instantly in the later maps.
Cath: She's a thief, yaddayadda.
Treck and Noah: Even if you try to play 'optimal', they (especially Noah) have some use as fast-moving units in the next few chapters. If trained, they'll still (on average) turn out decently.
Juno: 8 movement flying unit.
Shanna: Your only flying unit for quite the long time. Also, someone suggested to early-promote her so she can rule the skys over the Western Isles thanks to her sword access.
Tate: She's alright with hard mode bonuses. Without them, she does have a very rocky start.
Fae: Very fun to use, actually. She gains shittons of XP if you feed her kills and can deal large, accurate damage to bosses (and murder Manakete, fwiw)
Wolt: Very rocky start, but definitely useable, especially on NM. His accurate and uncountered chip damage is useful at the start.
Jerrot: He's obviously not as strong as Marcus was at ch.1 relatively to your other units. But his stats are still good at that point, he has 8 movement and he has ful weapon triangle control.
Cecilia: Staffbot/10.
Bors: Yeah, the developers seem to have overestimated the usefulness of slow, tanky units. Still, on NM he should be able to avoid being doubled.
Dorothy: See Wolt, with slightly better stats but worse availability. She can help to murder the wyvern riders in ch.7.
Sue: She's pretty good.
Dayan: He's an OK filler unit.
Gonzales/Geese: It's true that being axelocked sucks, especially since Heroes and Paladins can wield Hand Axes instantly after promoting (equalizing a big advantage specialized axe users would have). I tend not to use them, but keep in mind that Geese has decent skill and Gonzo with HM bonuses is hilarious.
Barth: See Bors, only worse. :D Won't argue that he's a rather pointless unit.
Wade/Lot: Useful in the earlygame; Lot stays viable longer than Wade.
Marcus: One of the most well-balanced Jeigans of the series. Immensely helpful in the earlygame (especially on HM).
Ellen: Staffbot/10.
Merlinus: He's immortal!! One of the funnier strats I've learned from dondon's run is the Merchant Sacrifice.

Again, the unit balancing in this game isn't good, but it's not as bad as you're making out. When talking about unit choices, suboptimal characters are almost never crippling, just... suboptimal. Wendy, Sophia and maybe Barth are the big exceptions where the player should know what he gets himself into. :D

Finally - it's not even exclusive to Fire Emblem as a whole that decisions in games make progressing easier or harder. Keeping a Beedrill in your Elite Four team will make a Pokémon game harder. Nonoptimal stat allocation will make your RPG character weaker than a min-maxed one. And replacing Allen with Treck will probably mean that one of your main units will be weaker than it could have been.

It would be bad game design (and frustrating) if such a decision would make the game unwinnable, but that is not the case in FE6.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

It would be bad game design (and frustrating) if such a decision would make the game unwinnable, but that is not the case in FE6.

I would also like to throw out there that it's good game design. Noah isn't meant to replace Allen, he's meant as a backup in case Allen died. Why should a player be rewarded with a just as good unit if they played poorly before?

Obviously design choices like that come in to play when iron-manning more so than when you re-set, but that was likely a thought in development.

ITT: Harvey is bad at FE6 so it's a terrible no good awful game.

Edited November 23, 2016 by ChibiToastExplosion

[SalShich10N]

Also, you might have thrown your credibility into the wastebin here.

Wait, you can make Noah and Treck work in FE6?

[eclipse]

Wait, you can make Noah and Treck work in FE6?

It's FE6, otherwise known as the game with infinite statboosters and a GBA-style RNG that's fairly easy to manipulate. Yes, it's possible.

[SalShich10N]

It's FE6, otherwise known as the game with infinite statboosters and a GBA-style RNG that's fairly easy to manipulate. Yes, it's possible.

I recall seeing boots in a secret shop, think to myself "there is no way you can buy more than one pair" and end the map with a 9 move Roy.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

I recall seeing boots in a secret shop, think to myself "there is no way you can buy more than one pair" and end the map with a 9 move Roy.

Yo bro I had a playthrough where I gave Roy & Geese 24 move each :p

To keep it on topic, I'm about to start Thracia today, as I have my repro cleaned and the SNES hooked up. I'm so excited!

[Magical Glace]

In all fairness, said boots come when 5 maps remain.

[Gradivus.]

Wait, you can make Noah and Treck work in FE6?

Sure, feeding them kills in C8-11 isn't too hard. They'll always be worse than Alance and Perceval though.

(infinite statboosters don't matter, they might want one of the midgame speedwings but the secret shop comes too late to be the decisive factor)

Edited November 24, 2016 by Gradivus.

[shadowofchaos]

However, it needs to be said that the autosaving versus battle saves is a thing. Battle Saves made a log of where you left off, so if you made a mistake later on down the line, you could return back to that state before you erred. The same cannot be said for Fire Emblem 6.

There has always been a difference of Suspends versus Battle Saves.

Battle Saves didn't exist in the recent era until FE11's map saves unless you had savestates.

I have FE6, FE7, and FE8 on my 3DS via the GBA Ambassador hack.

And I don't see any problem with the GBA's implementation.

FE4 might have map saves, but that's because their maps are so insanely huge and long that it justified them.

While it is punishing... it was a different era from the SNES.

And has been the standard for every classic mode entry in the series since then.

I don't see why FE6 alone should take Harvey's criticism of it.

Hell FE9 and FE10 (JP or Hard Mode had Suspend, not Battle Save) were even more punishing since they didn't auto suspend. If the power cut out, you had to start over period. The GBA games let you return to it immediately if your battery happens to die.

Edited November 24, 2016 by shadowofchaos