FE game with most wasted potential?

[Alistair]

Fairly simple: which mainline FE had the most wasted potential, in narrative and/or gameplay? For me, it'd either be Fates (compelling premise in theory but HORRIBLE narrative in practice) or Shadow Dragon (chance to flesh out the Akaniea cast).

[maybe]

radiant dawn

it's still good but there's a million things that could've been done better

[NinjaMonkey]

Shadow Dragon. They had a chance to completely remake the game from scratch, but they instead decided to be as faithful as possible to the original game.

Edited September 4, 2017 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadowess]

Fates

(i still like it though)

[Von Ithipathachai]

Fates is an easy answer, but most of this wasted potential is solely from a story perspective.

One problem is that the entire main premise of choosing between your blood family and the one you were raised with falls completely on its face due to the fact that you're not actually related to your supposed "blood family", killing whatever moral ambiguity the choice may have carried.

As for the individual stories of each version:

• Birthright suffers more than anything else from being too typical/simplistic
• Conquest's premise of reforming a bad kingdom from the inside out is not delivered upon well enough as Corrin and her siblings do little subversive enough until near the very end, leading to an unsatisfying conclusion
• Revelation, by value of its very existence, completely invalidates the theme of conflict between two opposing kingdoms that Fates as a whole was constructed around

Still, as subpar as Fates's story is, I can at least forgive it for fixing most of Awakening's balancing issues, though some fixes were better than others.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Von Ithipathachai

[Armagon]

Definitely a tie between Fates and Shadow Dragon. Fates tried to give us this morally gray conflict between Hoshido and Nohr. Instead, it showed us that Hoshido was the perfect paradise and anyone who comes from Nohr is the devil. Then there's Revelation, which just ruins the entire conflict of Fates by boiling it down to "the evil dragon is at it again". There could've been a good story here but nope. 

Shadow Dragon sufferers from being way too faithful to the source material. The thing that turned most people away was the lack of Support conversations. 

[X-Naut]

No support conversations is less of an issue than toning up the notions of your characters being disposable with gaiden requirements and generic replacements.

[Slumber]

From a gameplay perspective, Sacred Stones. FE7 was generally a more balanced, improved version of FE6 in most gameplay ways(They nerfed the shit out of enemies, but otherwise...). Map design, and scenarios/objectives were mostly a step up, too.

Sacred Stones seemed to put all of its eggs in branched promotions and the world map, and neglected mostly everything else. The former was a decent addition, but the latter was pointless. Maps weren't particularly great, the objectives and scenarios weren't very engaging, the enemy balance is some of the worst in the franchise, and way too many maps are just your army fighting faceless monsters. Aside from games that were hardware jumps, I can't think of any other FE sequel that didn't try something new, or wasn't an improvement in terms of game design. SS didn't really try anything new, and it was a step back from FE7 in terms of design.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

and way too many maps are just your army fighting faceless monsters

There aren't that many monster fights in the story. You have: 4, a lone Bael in 6, Eir 11&12, Eph 11 and ~50 of 12, 18, 20 and Final. That is it. The world map itself is pure monsters barring the Valni or Lagdou Thief for chest rivals.

 

I don't consider SS to be that much wasted potential- the game was a side project to PoR, that it exists at all is surprising. To be wasted potential, a game must have ambition, and 4&5, 9&10 (more so 10), and 14 all can be considered ambitious if you ask me.

[Slumber]

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

There aren't that many monster fights in the story. You have: 4, a lone Bael in 6, Eir 11&12, Eph 11 and ~50 of 12, 18, 20 and Final. That is it. The world map itself is pure monsters barring the Valni or Lagdou Thief for chest rivals.

 

I don't consider SS to be that much wasted potential- the game was a side project to PoR, that it exists at all is surprising. To be wasted potential, a game must have ambition, and 4&5, 9&10 (more so 10), and 14 all can be considered ambitious if you ask me.

4, 11+12 on both routes, 18, 20 and the final map make up 8 chapters of a game that effectively has ~30 chapters. 1/4 of the game is just fighting monsters.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just now, Slumber said:

4, 11+12, 12, 18, 20 and the final map make up 6 chapters of a game that effectively has ~30 chapters. 1/5 of the game is just fighting monsters.

I admit that monsters aren't the funnest of foes, and that the monster battles tend to be more fillery than the other ones (the route split monster fights are totally filler), but they aren't all that fillery. 4 introduces monsters, 18 ends with the Renais Sacred Stone smashed (and it's kinda strategic with the rush to the eggs before the Gorgons hatch), and the 20 and Final are the final battles.

In a game where monsters exist and are important to the plot (they're the Demon King's minions and a sign something is wrong in Magvel), I don't see how monsters being 20% of battles is awful. Sure they're generally easier than human enemies barring Mogalls, Gorgons, Draco Zombies and the Gargoyle sneak up in Eph 11, but how is giving them a mere 1/5 of game battles too much? If we dropped it further, would they really be relevant to the plot?

If your problem is that monsters exist at all in the plot, and that you'd rather have a pure human conflict with no Demon King in the background, well that's fine by me. But I'd rather you say outright "I wish monsters didn't exist" than say "they should have appeared less", implying you were okay with them at all.

[Slumber]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I admit that monsters aren't the funnest of foes, and that the monster battles tend to be more fillery than the other ones (the route split monster fights are totally filler), but they aren't all that fillery. 4 introduces monsters, 18 ends with the Renais Sacred Stone smashed (and it's kinda strategic with the rush to the eggs before the Gorgons hatch), and the 20 and Final are the final battles.

In a game where monsters exist and are important to the plot (they're the Demon King's minions and a sign something is wrong in Magvel), I don't see how monsters being 20% of battles is awful. Sure they're generally easier than human enemies barring Mogalls, Gorgons, Draco Zombies and the Gargoyle sneak up in Eph 11, but how is giving them a mere 1/5 of game battles too much? If we dropped it further, would they really be relevant to the plot?

If your problem is that monsters exist at all in the plot, and that you'd rather have a pure human conflict with no Demon King in the background, well that's fine by me. But I'd rather you say outright "I wish monsters didn't exist" than say "they should have appeared less", implying you were okay with them at all.

I'm mostly talking gameplay. They're not very fun to fight, and get old pretty quick in the main story. Oddly, I'm fine with them in the post-game.

From a story perspective, monsters could have worked, but pretty much all of the monster maps outside of Ephraim 12(Which eventually turns into this), and the last two monster maps are "Oh crap, monsters". They were lazily put in the game and clearly filler. Gaiden/SoV managed to work monsters into the plot a bit better, since usually they're accompanied by a Duma Faithful, so it isn't just a random thing that happens in the story.

The big part is that the use of monsters in SS is lazy. It's not wasted potential purely because they exist, it's because the game makers didn't really seem to have a good idea on what to do with them.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Chconroy]

Shadow Dragon: Probably the most obvious answer, but it's hard to deny the game could've been so much more. Support conversations to flesh out the characters, requirements for gaiden chapters that don't require you to slaughter most of the recruited units, and adding in more gameplay features to give the game something to stand out among the rest of the series.

Fates: One of the most conflicting games in the series for me, Fates does a lot right and a lot wrong. I could write an essay on my issues, but I'll keep it brief; the game tried to make the three campaigns separate stories yet forced them to hint at the true villain, causing the stories Birthright and Conquest to suffer for it. My Castle is neat, but I think those who use online features only really benefit, otherwise it feels like a distraction. Finally, making an Avatar the main character, reusing Awakening characters, and forcing in mechanics that conflict with the story (children) while trying to be it's own thing give the game a conflicting identity, like it's trying to be Awakening 2 and an entirely new game at the same time.

Sacred Stones: It really saddens me that Sacred Stones has so much potential, yet it goes unused. For me, it all stems from the game being too short. The story starts out really strong, but I feel like the pacing falls apart after the split and the fact that both characters split is canon yet also not canon since Lyon's situation changes depending on which route is taken makes me wonder why the path split was implemented. I like the new classes, the branching promotions, and trainee units, but the games length means I don't get much time to enjoy them. And the short length leads to Magvel not feeling very developed and I don't feel interested in the continent.

[Shadow Mir]

I'd say that Shadow Dragon and Sacred Stones both stood out as wasted potential to me - the former was guilty of, among other things, being too faithful to the original, hiding its new features behind a wall of bad design choices, toning up the notion of your army being disposable (something which two villains in the previous game got called out for), and being a wasted opportunity to flesh out Archanea's cast. The latter felt like a step backwards from FE7, both gameplay AND story wise (monsters felt like filler relative to Gaiden/SoV, and gameplay wise, most of them were less threatening than human enemies. Not helping matters is the fact that the final boss, despite his moniker, is one of the easiest final bosses in the series, as well as the fact that Sacred Stones is just way too short).

Edited September 5, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Florete]

Fates is basically the definition of wasted potential. Shadow Dragon could have been way more, but it never pretended to be more than it was.

[Emperor Hardin]

I should probably put all Awakening did wrong in another post.

While far from the most wasted potential, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia has a lot of things I like they added in the story and feel, but I think they missed a lot of gameplay improvements. They made the gameplay even more unbalanced then the original. Basically love the story/character additions, want the NES gameplay back.

Despite being lower budget, Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem handled the gameplay updating overall better.

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

I'm mostly talking gameplay. They're not very fun to fight, and get old pretty quick in the main story. Oddly, I'm fine with them in the post-game.

From a story perspective, monsters could have worked, but pretty much all of the monster maps outside of Ephraim 12(Which eventually turns into this), and the last two monster maps are "Oh crap, monsters". They were lazily put in the game and clearly filler. Gaiden/SoV managed to work monsters into the plot a bit better, since usually they're accompanied by a Duma Faithful, so it isn't just a random thing that happens in the story.

The big part is that the use of monsters in SS is lazy. It's not wasted potential purely because they exist, it's because the game makers didn't really seem to have a good idea on what to do with them.

Really Sacred Stones has the most varied and interesting monster classes in the series, including Tearring Saga? See Awakening, which is just reskinned humans and walking bags of EXP for monsters, for a bad handling of monsters.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[Shadow Mir]

11 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Really Sacred Stones has the most varied and interesting monster classes in the series, including Tearring Saga? See Awakening, which is just reskinned humans and walking bags of EXP for monsters, for a bad handling of monsters.

Too bad that most of them were less threatening than the human enemies (and the human enemies in SS weren't exactly major threats, either).

13 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Despite being lower budget, Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem handled the gameplay updating overall better.

I disagree on this, at least as far as SD's concerned - adding the WT in SD felt rather questionable, for starters.

[Emperor Hardin]

6 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Too bad that most of them were less threatening than the human enemies (and the human enemies in SS weren't exactly major threats, either).

That applies to every FE with monsters, humans are stronger then monsters. Also Gorgons and Dracozombies were some of the most threatening enemies in the game.

6 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I disagree on this, at least as far as SD's concerned - adding the WT in SD felt rather questionable, for starters.

For one, they gave all classes a promotion, made movement more balanced, ETC. Weapon triangle was kinda redundant, though they did continually give DracoKnights and Heroes Axes to add some variety, Fighter/Warrior enemies after chapter 4 outside of the extra chapters would've been nice. Echoes did similar, as despite the game engine being able to handle Pegasus and Mage enemies now, they only appear in extra chapters.

Echoes: Shadows of Valentia actually made the classes more unbalanced then the original.

Like a good blend for me would be Shadow Dragon/New Mystery's gameplay updating with Echoes: shadows of Valentia's story updating.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Really Sacred Stones has the most varied and interesting monster classes in the series, including Tearring Saga? See Awakening, which is just reskinned humans and walking bags of EXP for monsters, for a bad handling of monsters.

The monster classes are more varied, but it really doesn't add much to the game outside of 3 or 4 cases. A good chunk of them are substitutes for normal human classes, just without dialogue or unique portraits. There's no reason Ephraim 11 couldn't have been a Wyvern siege map with some Baals for good measure(Hell, the next chapter straight up shows the baddies working with monsters), instead it's a gargoyle(Essentially just wyverns) siege that doesn't add anything to the game because the gargoyles come out of nowhere and can't talk.

Same goes for any bone walker maps that could have just been a mix of mercs, soldiers and archers.

And, as Levant has mentioned, in pretty much all cases where monster units are subbed for normal human enemies, the monster units are weaker than the already weak human enemies. The faceless cyclops boss of Ephraim 12 could have easily been a Warrior or Berserker boss, and it probably would been a much tougher boss, and there could have been actual dialogue.

And again, the big problem with this is that they make up a quarter of the story maps.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Slumber

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

That applies to every FE with monsters, humans are stronger then monsters. Also Gorgons and Dracozombies were some of the most threatening enemies in the game.

For one, they gave all classes a promotion, made movement more balanced, ETC. Weapon triangle was kinda redundant, though they did continually give DracoKnights and Heroes Axes to add some variety, Fighter/Warrior enemies after chapter 4 outside of the extra chapters would've been nice. Echoes did similar, as despite the game engine being able to handle Pegasus and Mage enemies now, they only appear in extra chapters.

Echoes: Shadows of Valentia actually made the classes more unbalanced then the original.

Like a good blend for me would be Shadow Dragon/New Mystery's gameplay updating with Echoes: shadows of Valentia's story updating.

Even so, you could've taken out the monsters from the maps that had them, and it wouldn't feel any different for reasons Slumber stated. And Gorgons and Dracozombies appear in all of three maps and one map, respectively.

True, but I wouldn't say Shadow Dragon had good class balance, either. And you still have stuff like most of the new features being hidden behind a wall of awful design choices.

[Emperor Hardin]

31 minutes ago, Slumber said:

The monster classes are more varied, but it really doesn't add much to the game outside of 3 or 4 cases. A good chunk of them are substitutes for normal human classes, just without dialogue or unique portraits. There's no reason Ephraim 11 couldn't have been a Wyvern siege map with some Baals for good measure(Hell, the next chapter straight up shows the baddies working with monsters), instead it's a gargoyle(Essentially just wyverns) siege that doesn't add anything to the game because the gargoyles come out of nowhere and can't talk.

Same goes for any bone walker maps that could have just been a mix of mercs, soldiers and archers.

And, as Leviant has mentioned, in pretty much all cases where monster units are subbed for normal human enemies, the monster units are weaker than the already weak human enemies. The faceless cyclops boss of Ephraim 12 could have easily been a Warrior or Berserker boss, and it probably would been a much tougher boss, and there could have been actual dialogue.

And again, the big problem with this is that they make up a quarter of the story maps.

The monsters do have class portraits. While they are comparable to human classes, they are still different, for example Mauthe Doog is a skill and speed class, but has high movement and uses fangs. While Cyclops has high defense, cap breaking HP and good speed.

 

Monsters not being able to talk/get characterization counts for every Fire Emblem game with them, unless you are counting Morphs/War Dragons as monsters.

Again the variety is nice. In the faceless chapters of Fates, you just fought hordes and hordes of the same faceless class. In every monster chapter in Sacred Stones, there was never just one class.

Also when Monsters were used in Sacred Stones it was because humans wouldn't make sense. Human armies aren't going to be openly helping the Demon King himself, so thats why there are monsters.

Awakening didn't even use monsters well. In the very final chapter, Grima himself literally relies on HUMAN soldiers to help him destroy humanity, instead of even using risen. Like if Grima's followers are that evil, what is the point of including Risen in the first place?

The Sacred Stones engine sadly doesn't easily allow summoning monsters, going through the game data shows they planned enemy summoners. 

All of the monsters in Sacred Stones were brilliantly animated, helping them feel different. Even the skeletons had vibrant animations.

Last route I played was Ephraim route and the majority of chapters I remember were humans. I remember the ship, the port, the gorgon egg chapter, and the last two chapters being monster chapters. Then Lute and Artur's intro chapter. Thats not most chapters to my personal recollections.

17 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Even so, you could've taken out the monsters from the maps that had them, and it wouldn't feel any different for reasons Slumber stated. And Gorgons and Dracozombies appear in all of three maps and one map, respectively.

True, but I wouldn't say Shadow Dragon had good class balance, either. And you still have stuff like most of the new features being hidden behind a wall of awful design choices.

As mentioned above, Monsters exist for a story reason and can pose a significant threat in Sacred Stones.

To put it quickly. Take Armored classes, Echoes made them worse then the original, taking away their advantages. Shadow Dragon and New Mystery gave Armored classes a niche and improved them a bit, like Knight to General gets an increase in movement. Contrast Echoes nerfing warp and the move ring, the few things that helped Armor units in the original, while buffing the already far too powerful Dread Fighters and Bow Knights.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[Shadow Mir]

31 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The monsters do have class portraits. While they are comparable to human classes, they are still different, for example Mauthe Doog is a skill and speed class, but has high movement and uses fangs. While Cyclops has high defense, cap breaking HP and good speed.

 

Monsters not being able to talk/get characterization counts for every Fire Emblem game with them, unless you are counting Morphs/War Dragons as monsters.

Again the variety is nice. In the faceless chapters of Fates, you just fought hordes and hordes of the same faceless class. In every monster chapter in Sacred Stones, there was never just one class.

Also when Monsters were used in Sacred Stones it was because humans wouldn't make sense. Human armies aren't going to be openly helping the Demon King himself, so thats why there are monsters.

Awakening didn't even use monsters well. In the very final chapter, Grima himself literally relies on HUMAN soldiers to help him destroy humanity, instead of even using risen. Like if Grima's followers are that evil, what is the point of including Risen in the first place?

The Sacred Stones engine sadly doesn't easily allow summoning monsters, going through the game data shows they planned enemy summoners. 

All of the monsters in Sacred Stones were brilliantly animated, helping them feel different. Even the skeletons had vibrant animations.

Last route I played was Ephraim route and the majority of chapters I remember were humans. I remember the ship, the port, the gorgon egg chapter, and the last two chapters being monster chapters. Then Lute and Artur's intro chapter. Thats not most

To put it quickly. Take Armored classes, Echoes made them worse then the original, taking away their advantages. Shadow Dragon and New Mystery gave Armored classes a niche and improved them a bit, like Knight to General gets an increase in movement. Contrast Echoes nerfing warp and the move ring, while buffing the already Dread Fighters and Bow Knights.

Maybe, but that doesn't mean they added much of anything to the game - story wise, they were pretty much just there until the very end of the game.

Well, the Faceless in Fates were one thing that most all of Sacred Stones' monsters failed miserably at being - an actual threat. I don't really care much for seeing a variety of monsters if all most of them amount to is cannon fodder.

Perhaps, but at the same time, you have Riev, a human, who sics monsters on Ephraim and his army at one point in the story, and chapter 20 has him fight alongside the monsters.

Wall, as I see it... It ain't like Sacred Stones' implementation of monsters was anything other than clumsy. Most all of the monster fights in SS felt like filler.

WRT the class balance stuff: even then, SoV Barons don't feel pointless to me like Warriors, Dark Mages and Sorcerers did in SD. Also, I fail to see why people treat Dread Fighters as gods (though part of it is because I have yet to actually play the game) - they're still swordlocked, with all the problems that comes with (always eating counters, no (good) ranged options).

Edited September 5, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

It was close to say FE11 because it is a lazy remake, but since it's a remake it'd be unfair to expect seeing many improvements. I mean it has a few like weapon triangle and weapon weight. 

So my vote goes to FE13 because it goes back to the basics from the early 90s by removing the game mechanics to a minium (no variety in mission objectives, no ballistas, no light magic and magic triangle...). Furthermore it is horribly unbalanced. The player's advantage by the introduction of pair-up only for the player should be equaled by artifical difficulty in the case of lunatic (+).

[Emperor Hardin]

13 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Maybe, but that doesn't mean they added much of anything to the game - story wise, they were pretty much just there until the very end of the game.

Well, the Faceless in Fates were one thing that most all of Sacred Stones' monsters failed miserably at being - an actual threat.

Perhaps, but  at the same time, you have Riev, a human, who sics monsters on Ephraim and his army at one point in the story, and chapter 20 has him fight alongside the monsters.

WRT the class balance stuff: even then, SoV Barons don't feel pointless to me like Warriors, Dark Mages and Sorcerers did in SD. Also, I fail to see why people treat Dread Fighters as gods (though part of it is because I have yet to actually play the game) - they're still swordlocked, with all the problems that comes with (always eating counters, no (good) ranged options).

They add something. As mentioned, Risen are pointless when the Grimleal are already loyal/evil enough to do anything Grima tells them anyhow.

Even the Nohrian Soldiers/Lancers are a threat on high difficulty, so thats not much for Faceless who have lower bases/caps then Sacred Stones monsters.

SoV Barons are 3 move behind the other infantry units in a game with huge maps, have the same caps as everyone else, tanking hurts their faituge a lot in dungeons, their stats aren't that great, they have no advantages. There is zero reason a unit would ever want to be a Baron over a Gold Knight, the class is solely a liability. 

In a game where the vast majority of enemies are magic users, halving magic damage AND having good resistance is an incredible boon that Dread Fighters did not need. In the original, they only had good resistance.

All the default Bow units all had bad skill in the original game to balance out their massive range. In Echoes, both the default bow units and the bow class growth itself all have very good skill, making the class even more absurd.

Javelins, Sol and Gradivus were all nerfed in Echoes. Swords are better then Lances in the game, see the absurd Astra which has a 5 hit attack by command with a sword that gives an incredible critical boost.

Fighters/Warriors have great growths and decent caps in SD. They're far from a bad class. Several characters like Ogma can even get +2 HP on a single level up as a Fighter.

Dark Mages/Sorcerers are no better worse then Mages/Sages in Shadow Dragon/Mystery, they aren't a waste of a class like Echoes Barons.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[Shadow Mir]

38 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

They add something. As mentioned, Risen are pointless when the Grimleal are already loyal/evil enough to do anything Grima tells them anyhow.

Even the Nohrian Soldiers/Lancers are a threat on high difficulty, so thats not much for Faceless who have lower bases/caps then Sacred Stones monsters.

SoV Barons are 3 move behind the other infantry units in a game with huge maps, have the same caps as everyone else, tanking hurts their faituge a lot in dungeons, their stats aren't that great, they have no advantages. There is zero reason a unit would ever want to be a Baron over a Gold Knight, the class is solely a liability. 

In a game where the vast majority of enemies are magic users, halving magic damage AND having good resistance is an incredible boon that Dread Fighters did not need. In the original, they only had good resistance.

All the default Bow units all had bad skill in the original game to balance out their massive range. In Echoes, both the default bow units and the bow class growth itself all have very good skill, making the class even more absurd.

Javelins, Sol and Gradivus were all nerfed in Echoes. Swords are better then Lances in the game, see the absurd Astra which has a 5 hit attack by command with a sword that gives an incredible critical boost.

Fighters/Warriors have great growths and decent caps in SD. They're far from a bad class. Several characters like Ogma can even get +2 HP on a single level up as a Fighter.

Dark Mages/Sorcerers are no better worse then Mages/Sages in Shadow Dragon/Mystery, they aren't a waste of a class like Echoes Barons.

Like what? Variety? I fail to see this so-called "variety" when nearly all monster classes are comparable to human classes (and that's being generous when they're even weaker than humans - for (EFF!)'s sake, with one exception, monsters don't even use Silver weapons at all!). I don't care much for variety when most of Sacred Stones' monsters amount to nothing more than cannon fodder, and story wise, they still felt more like an obvious filler element than anything else.

Except for the part where Faceless tend to not drop in one round, unlike nearly all of Sacred Stones' monsters (which, as an extra kick in the nuts, get rekt 6 ways to and from Sunday by Bishops) and tend to pack all sorts of nasty skills, like Seals.

Maybe, but from where I'm standing, those classes I named were in an even worse position, at least in SD.

What was the universal truth of Fire Emblem games again...? That mages tend to be in the minority on the enemy side...? Long story short, I have no reason to believe this until I actually get the game for myself. 

No comment. (haven't played the game, so I don't know how true that is)

In what way?

I fail to see how they're worth using when anyone who can be a Warrior can instead be a Berserker, which is just better.

Maybe that's true in New Mystery after you unlock reclassing options, but in SD, I'd say they're pointless.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia