FiboSai

If you try hard enough, almost any FE game can be soloed by a variety of characters. The only ones I don't think can be soloed are Fe10, for obvious reasons, and the DS games.

It is extremely hard (or even impossible) to come up with criteria that fit all Fire Emblem Games. X-nauts definition of "a unit needing a niche" is probably as close as it gets. Another good way to formulate it would be "a unit that is above replacement level is good". This basically sais that a good unit will contribute more than most other units if you were to replace the former with the latter. There is also the case of units that are only good because of their unique access to certain weapons. This mostly affects Staff users, the best example being Renee from Tearring Saga. She is the only character in the game who can use the Warp Staff, so some tier lists put her as the best unit in the game because what she does cannot be replicated by anyone else. The best combat units in the game cannot save as many turns as a late joining priestess with the warp staff. The criteria also change depending on how you play the game. Some units get much better in efficiency runs. Vanessa from Sacred Stones is a great example. Her stats are not very good, but being the only flyer until chapter 9 makes her irreplacable if you are looking to minimize your turn count. If you would rather take your time and level up your other units, Vanessa gets much worse.

The mechanics of fates were some of the best ever, so I wouldn't mind if they copied some of the good elements. The bad thing about fates was the story, mainly the fact that it was too focused on the avatar character. That can't really happen in Three Houses. I would also like it if they kept the support system from fates, but I think it is more likely it will be similar to SoV with the game being fully voice acted. From what I have seen from the trailers, it would appear that the game mechanics are very different from any game up to date, but really, nobody can tell at this point.

For me, the music that plays during the battle scenes is also a big part when deciding whether to keep animations on. I'm not too fond of the GBA battle music, so I tend to leave them off more often than not. But I absolutely love the battle themes in Awakening, Fates and Echoes, so I play with animations on most of the time. The exeption is when I have to play a map multiple times.

Compared to other RPGs, Fire Emblem's writing is definately below average. I consider Path of Radiance the best in that regard, since it is the only game that doesn't fail in either the plot department or the character department. It is solid in both. All other games have either a flawed story (Sacred Stones, Fates, Shadows of Valentia) or flawed character writing (all the pre Elibe games, Radiant Dawn). Path of Radiance is also the game with the least supernatural influence, the final boss is a powerhungry human ruler, not a possessed wizard or a mythological dragon.

Forde is considered mediocre because his base stats are not that good for the time he is recruited, and even with his growths is unlikely to ever become great. For example, his base stats are not that much better than Franz's despite being many levels higher, and Franz joins in chapter 1, giving him a huge level lead by chapter 8. Kyle is not much better, but at least he has enough strenght to 1RKO many enemies once he starts doubling. Forde has to get blessed to consistently 1RKO, so even if he is trained, you don't get that much out of him.

I don't like that first suggestions, that will most likely cause even more balance issues in favor of the early joiners. The other suggestions I like pretty well. Limiting the BEXP to say 100 per character per chapter, or just impose a total BEXP limit by chapter solves the issue of funneling all into one character.

Many other games have RNG-proof prepromotes that join in the mid game and immediately trivialize the game. Binding Blade has Percival, who most likely has better stats than any paladin you have raised up to that point, is in the best class and has great weapon ranks. His only downside is that his accuracy can be shakey Blazing Sword has Pent, who can ORKO most generic enemies and even comes with A rank in staves. His low defense hardly matters since most enemies that can to a lot of damage have rather low accuracy against him, and his free A support with Louise greatly increases his survivability. Saleh in Sacred Stones is similar to Pent. He has worse stats, but compared to the enemies, he is just as powerful as his predecessor. In Radiant Dawn, each part has its own overpowered units. In part 1, you get Tauroneo, Nailah, Tormod and the Black Night, all of which can solo the chapters they are available in. In part 2 and 3, you get Haar, who needs basically no investment to trivialize all chapters. Ike and Titania are also extremely powerful and require no investment. In part 4 you get Tibarn for his chapters, which he will destroy on his own if needed. In Genealogy, anyone with a holy weapon outclasses the rest of your cast, and the insane stat boost means that their stats hardly matter. Ryoma is just another unit that needs no investment and pays you off by making the rest of the game much easier. I agree that the powergap between Ryoma and the rest of your army is bigger than in the games I mentioned (exept in Genealogy), but you in no way need to use Ryoma, it is just more efficient to have him clear a group of enemies instead of devoting half your army to do the same.

Having recently played Tearring Saga, which does have movement growth, I am completely against it. It is basically impossible to balance movement growth. If the growth rate is too high, it makes the units with a high growth overpowered, and if you make them low, it leads to a huge variance in unit viability. Just one extra point of movement makes a unit two tiers better.

It really is just the unpromoted axe users that suck. Once you get Lott, Gonzales or Geese to promote, they turn into quite capable units thanks to their great promotion gains. The problem is getting them there. All axe users are hard to train due to having either bad accuracy, bad speed, or bad durability. Gonzales on hard mode is the easiest since he comes with good base stats and can be instantly promoted if you go the B route on the western isles.

The voice acting gave most characters a more distinct personality. I don't think some of the characters would be as popular as they are if they didn't have such great voice actors. Personally, I think Berkut is totally saved by his voice actor. His dialogue is nothing special and his character is shallow, but the performance of the actor makes him much more believable and relateble. Same is true for many others.

I got many units killed in Awakening because A) I didn't bother to check for effective weapons (Kellam got killed by the Hammer-Fighter in chapter 3 many times) or B) sending units into the fray without paying attention to the weapon triangle. I remember that I got so frustrated by chapter 10 in particular, because I kept on attacking a mercenary or mage with a lance wielding cavalier withoug noticing that they were surrounded by fighters and wyverns. No wonder I lost two units on that map. Even more embarassing is the fact that all of this happened on normal mode, which is one of the easiest FE experiences to date.

The mid- to late-game prepromotes have low base stats compared to a trained growth unit. They will do fine on normal mode, so if you really like a certain unit you can make them work. On higher difficulties, the late-game prepromotes are completely worthless though. For example, Astram gets one rounded by the heroes that accompany him in his recruitment chapter.

Etzel's main draw is his ability to use Excalibur at base while also having staff utility. Merric and Elrean will outclass him in the lategame, but Etzel needs no investment at all to be good. On Maniac and above, Etzel is one of the best units.

Ninjad by Ping... I think Yumina is often better than Mallesia. She has better bases and generally better growth, except for Magic. Mallesia has the obvious advantage of being able to use the Hammerne staff later, but Yumina will have better survivability because she won't be doubled. The main reason Sirius is good is because you can reclass him into many good classes depending on the chapter, such as Dracoknight, Sniper, Swordmaster, Paladin and General (not all of them will be available to you since you have not beaten the game yet though). Palla and Catria are supperior to Sheeda because of their join time. If you use both of them extensively, they will have a massive lead on Sheeda when you finally recruit her. Sheeda is needed to recruit certain characters later, such as in chapter 6 and chapter 8.

Also, make sure to recruit all characters, some of them are holding an orb. The most notable are in chapter 8 (you need to recruit that character with Gordin or Marth), chapter 9 (visit the village with Marth) and chapter 10 (you need to recruit the character in question with Wendel, Marth won't work here).

On normal mode, you can get away with basically everything. The early game is similar to hard mode, but the game gets progressively easier. By the endgame, your units will completely overpower the enemies thanks to the generally high growth rates. Reclassing is not neccessary on that difficulty, but you can absolotely use it to make your units even more absurd than they already are. On maniac and above, your options are much more limited. As already stated, almost everyone who joins after chapter 10 is completely unusable. For lunatic, you also need to now a bit about enemy AI behaviour and how to use the reclass system to its fullest potential, otherwise you most likely won't get past the first few chapters. The posters above me praised the archers in this game. Just to clarify, bows are indeed a very good weapon type in new mystery, but the archer class itself is bad. Their movement is worse than a knight's and they have bad base stats. If you want a bow use, reclass them to hunter. After promotion, you can choose between sniper and horseman depending on the map. Horseman is the best endgame class of the game thanks to its good stat caps in a game where your really need to reach those caps. Sniper has the advantage of coming with instant C rank in bows, so even a unit with no bow training can simply reclass to sniper and shoot things with a killer bow.

Miltank is most likely the Pokemon with the highest total stats compared to yours in any Pokemon game. That alone can make it scary to face at first. I was only able to beat her with my level 27 Quilava when I played the game in my childhood, but that is because I didn't know much about Pokemon back then. There are many different strategies to beat Miltank even without relying on specific counters like Machop and Geodude. Just to demonstrate this, here is a small list of readily available moves that will make the battle very easy: Growl, Charm, Thunderwave, Curse, Sandattack, Mudslap, Stunspore, Curse, Reflect, Poisonpowder, ... In addition to that, Rollout is very exploitable. Miltank can't use other moves while locked into Rollout, which can easly allow you to KO it before it gets a chance to heal. Flaafy 3HKOs with Thunderpunch, Croconaw can build up Rage against Clefairy, any Rock type beats it, and the list goes on. If you are prepared, Miltank is not really an issue. That being said, Whitney is still one of the most difficult gym leaders. I would rank her 2nd behind Claire in her game.

I would recommend you to catch every Shadow Pokemon you see, even if you are not going to use them. There is a purification mechanic that can be greatly sped up if you have a lot of non-Shadow Pokemon in your PC Boxes. You will be able to evolve your Eevee very early, and I highly recommend doing that immediately. This gives you a very good Pokemon for the early game. Espeon is probably the best evolution, but Jolteon and Vaporeon are also good. Umbreon is ok and Flareon is pretty bad, but still usable if you happen to really want one. There is a good guide on Smogon on which Pokemon are good in this game. It is based largely on efficiency, so Pokemon you can capture late are lower on the list, but for the early game Pokemon, it is a very good guide. Here is the link: http://www.smogon.com/ingame/misc/xd_ingametiers. Most of the in-game battles are double battles, so you should value moves that hit multiple enemies or support both of your team members higher than usual. I am a big fan of Reflect and Light Screen, which you can buy at some point. Those moves will help you a lot in the tougher fights.

I consider Heroes more of a puzzle game than a strategy game. Since the outcome of every battle is fixed, you can perfectly plan your moves, which eventually leads to a perfect solution. Other FE games that use the traditional RNG system are not that way, the influence of RNG makes it so you can't know every outcome in advance and have to adjust accordingly. To me, this aspect adds a lot of replay value, as every playthrough is slightly different. There is a certain charm to games like Heroes. If you manage to find the perfect solution, you know you have solved the game. LTC and speedrunners try to do the same thing with regular FE games, but due to the random aspect of the game, even the most reliable strategies are not guaranteed to work. I personally appreciate the fact that FE games cannot be completely solved.

Dark Holy Elf pretty much covered everything already. The question "what if Pi wasn't irrational" doesn't really mean anything, if that were in fact true, mathematics would just be different. To add something to the discussion: Pi is not only irrational, it can even be shown to be trancendental (that means it is not the solution of a polynomial equation). This has some inderect consequences on for instance fourrier transforms, which would be much more elegant otherwise.

Here are some challenges I imposed on myself. Some of them are still running Female-only runs (including the Lord): I did this in FE9 and FE12, though it turned out to be pretty stupid in FE9 as I could only use Titania and Ike for the first 7 chapters, and beating chapter 8 with 3 characters without healing was annoying (although not hard, as an overleveled Ike and Titania stump everything) No pair-up run in FE13: I did two versions of this, in one of them I added the challenge of not being allowed to use second seals. This challenge makes Aweking much harder, but also much more balanced, as most of the broken thing about Robin are caused by Veteran, which is useless without pair-ups. Nosferatu is still a thing, but is harder to pull of because your mages won't have the raw stats to withstand hordes of enemies for most of the game. No promotion runs in FE13: Basically playing FE13 without using Master Seals or using pre-promotes. This is hardly more difficult than vanilla FE13 until the very end game, as your stats with pair-ups are still good enough. Still haven't finished that one. Random recruitement: I let a random number generator generate a selection of units for me to use. Did this for FE10 and FE12. Funnily enough, I got the 4 worst units in FE10, Meg, Fiona, Astrid and Lyre, all in the same random selection.

There is no game that I can think of that I actively dislike now, though Genealogy of the Holy War comes pretty close. The gameplay and balance of this game are horrendous. You can either play efficiently, which makes you bench everyone who doesn't have a horse basically immediately, or you can choose to use everyone, in which case you will spend dozens of turn doing nothing. There are many games, however, that I used to adore but have come to realize their flaws. The best example is the second generation of Pokemon. I played Silver on the virtual console recently and noticed how pathetic all trainers outside of a few gymleaders are. The wild Pokemon also don't scale very well, which makes many supposedly exciting Pokemon completely useless unless you are willing to grind them for 2 hours. Another example is Shin Megami Tensei IV. The monster mechanics is very solid, but the game mechnics are way too swingy in my opinion. If you can exploit weaknesses, you will win every battle easily, but that goes for the enemies as well. Playing this without a strategy guide will cause many frustrating game overs because you happen to get ambushed by a monster you are weak to or you guess the bosses weakness wrong.

I switched to standard mode. That fixed the looping to the intro map, but I still can't get past chapter 5. After beating the chapter, I get the usual chapter select screen, but I can't select the next chapter, it only shows introduction, prologue, chapter 2 and chapter 5.

Something stranged happened to me recently. After finishing chapter 3, I was sent to the world map where I could only choose between the introduction and the prologue. I can't find a way to continue to chapter 4. It looks like the save file is lost. Is this a known problem?