iridium137

I keep going back to Fates. Three Houses feels like an exercise in raw tedium. There are four routes, and there's a lot of repetition and re-used maps in those routes, including having to do part 1 at least three times. Difficulty-wise, it's not well-balanced. Hard is too easy, while maddening goes way overboard on inflating enemy stats (especially bulk), which makes battles a huge slog and not fun. The monestary is also very time-consuming (and I won't elaborate on it as it has already been talked out countless times). Engage's gameplay is great in the first 11 maps or so. On maddening, the difficulty is challenging but still feels fair and balanced. It feels like a carefully fine-tuned and hand-crafted experience, especially with fixed growths. But at some point (around the point when paralogues open up), that all goes out the window. Nearly every middle and endgame map seems to be reinforcement spam (with Ike's paralogue and chapter 25 being some of the most egregious), which gets tiring very quickly, especially with the sheer bulk on enemies. Stat inflation also starts to kick in (although it's nowhere near as bad as Three Houses). And while the Somniel is okay at first, at some point, the sheer number of minigames, said minigames getting higher difficulty, alongside arena, cooking, ring polishing, etc start feeling even more tedious than the monestary. The characters and setting also feel... dull and empty. At least Three Houses's story and characters kept me invested for a while (even if it's not all that great either). But Engage... it's only been two months and I already no longer feel engaged (no pun intended) at all. Fates gameplay is among the best in the series. Its use of enemy skills provides a unique kind of challenge (that's different from inflating enemy stats, which often leads to unfun gameplay). In fact, stat inflation in Fates (aside from Rev) is some of the lowest in the series. Class and character balance, while not perfect, is some of the best. And unique mechanics such as attack/guard stance and each weapon having some special effect, leads to a game that's more deep and nuanced than most others in the series. And while the story is bad, it's so over-the-top obviously and comically bad that it ended up working to its advantage- because I quickly stopped taking it seriously.

Interesting. You're the first person I've seen that treats "puzzle" as a negative. A lot of the praise I've seen for Conquest also refers to it as a puzzle game.

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons why higher-rank weapons look so bad is because you can forge lower-rank weapons to create a weapon that's almost as strong, with none of the drawbacks. For example: A brave sword costs 8000, and has 6 Mt, 75 hit, brave effect, and Def/Res -4. For the same price, you can forge: A silver sword +1, which has 14 Mt, 90 hit, dodge -5, and debuff upon use. A steel sword +2, which has 13 Mt, 87 hit, avoid -5, and attack speed -3. A iron sword +3, which has 12 Mt, 94 hit, 1 crit. A bronze sword +4, which has 12 Mt, 109 hit, 10 dodge, and inability to crit/proc. As long as you don't need crits or proc skills (which you shouldn't be relying on anyway), forged bronze is far and away the best. It has 15 hit over the next best option, and the extra dodge is invaluable in a game where dodge is half luck and there's a plethora of crit-boosting classes. If you do want to use crits or procs, iron is the next best, although 15 less hit and lack of crit protection is concerning. The others have too many drawbacks for almost no gain. Even the proposed silver change isn't enough. The dodge penalty alone is a dealbreaker- the last thing I want is more Arthurs on my team.

I noticed that most of the discussion is about the story implications. I don't have much to say about that (I don't pay much attention to the story anyways), but I do have quite a bit to say about gameplay. While permadeath has been a series staple, I've never been a fan of it. The consequences of losing a unit feels too punishing, to the point where I just reset anyways. I like how some of the FE clones handled unit loss. One made the fallen unit unable to participate in the next chapter. Another inflicted a permanent stat loss on the fallen unit. I liked both of these consequences a lot better. They're just bad enough that you don't want to play carelessly or take unnecessary risks, but not so severe that you'd want to reset the map if somebody falls. (Both of these games are pretty bad overall, so I'm purposefully not naming them because I wouldn't recommend them anyway.) And as a result of how punishing permadeath can be, I often find myself playing in ways that end up being frustrating, tedious, and plain unfun. To name a few things I don't like: You get 10-12ish units, and frequently have to slog through 30+ enemy units (and they often get reinforcements). You have to kill most/all of them, while them killing one of yours is effectively a "moral victory" for them. I've always felt it was unfair how the stakes are so drastically different. Especially because the level design often makes it abundantly clear that the enemy isn't even trying to win, they're just trying to kill one of your units and cause a reset. The enemy is able to employ dumb strategies like relying on low% hits and crits, or chain-suiciding on your units. You, on the other hand, are unable to use some perfectly valid strategies like distractions or pincer attacks, because any move that puts your units at risk is a non-starter. (It's even worse when the game tries to encourage such strategies.) Permadeath is supposed to add challenge and tension, but I find that in practice, it just limits options. For example, as much as I would like to use a glass-cannon unit like a berserker, they're simply not worth it in any kind of serious play. Permadeath completely throws out the concept of risk vs reward, because you can't afford to take any risks at all. If you know anything about how I play Fire Emblem, I take no chances whatsoever, and it's largely a result of permadeath. 90% chance to hit? Not good enough, I try to go for 100% whenever possible. Whereas 20% hit on the enemy still needs to be respected. There's no concept of taking calculated risks, because any risk is too much risk. This also means I seldom use things like axes and steel weapons, because they introduce too much uncertainty for too little gain. Critical hits. Technically related to the previous point, but this is so egregious, I need to mention it separately. The massively overkill 3x multiplier is bad enough on its own, but it's even worse when combined with permadeath. Easily the worst mechanic in Fire Emblem. The two aforementioned "bad" games both reduce the multiplier to 2x, because anybody with any sense knows 3x is way too much. It makes fights way too volatile. It makes low luck units nearly unusable, and any time I see an enemy with listed crit on my units, it becomes a major source of anxiety. (I wouldn't be surprised if I lost 10 years of lifespan just from all the listed crit from enemies. Especially in conjunction with all the times I need to hope a 90% hits.) On the flipside, critical hits are too unreliable for the player to rely on, and even when you do get it, it's often unnecessary overkill (and can even be bad for you). Let's face it, when two roughly equal forces clash, the idea that one force can defeat the other without a single casualty is ludicrous. Can you imagine winning a match of Advance Wars, or chess, or Pokemon, with no losses? Even a master would struggle to beat a beginner under those conditions. The only reason reason it's possible in Fire Emblem is because your units massively overpower the enemy. On lower difficulties, almost everybody overpowers the enemy and the game is basically trivial. And until the recent games, even higher difficulties are all about abusing the few units that can stand up to the enemy's inflated stats (think Wolf/Sedgar or FE12/13 avatar). And if you have no such unit, then the strategy becomes extreme turtling (think Curved Shot spam), AI abuse, or cheese strats (think water trick). None of those scenarios are particularly fun or interesting. And as much as I rail on permadeath, I'm not a fan of casual mode either. The game is designed with permadeath in mind, so taking that away with no downside tends to trivialize the difficulty. Nor am I a fan of rewind mechanics. I've been guilty of savestate abuse for a long time, so the last thing I want is further enabling bad habits.

What are the internal levels for the pre-promoted characters?

Is there any fights where Alear will be necessary or borderline necessary? When cooking meals, what does "extra ingredients" do?

Urgh. I just encountered a Gamefaqs thread where several really nasty people not only defended the localization, but accused anybody that disagreed of being a pedophile. I'm gonna need some brain bleach after this. It's even worse people these ages don't even appear in-game. And a lot of the ages look BS anyways.

Redux is dead, but Exalted is a similar project made by the same creator, and it's currently under development. You can click the link above and go to the discord if you want to try it out.

It seems like a lot of people dislike the Three Houses system, with the common complaint that it makes units too "samey". It's actually my favorite system, and I don't think that's a problem at all. Allow me to explain. Let's say your party consists of a cavalry, armor, and mage. With no reclassing, you're stuck with those classes. The units might be distinct, but your party is the same every time. With limited reclassing, let's say every unit gets 2 possibilities. The number of combinations is 2^3 = 8. With free reclassing (assuming there's only 3 classes), there's 3^3 = 27 possibilities. The units might feel samey, but your party becomes incredibly diverse. In particular, focused strategies like all-cavalry or all-flier are only possible under a Three Houses system. There's generally a tradeoff between unit diversity and party diversity, and I'd take party diversity over unit diversity any day. Concrete example: my Three Houses party generally consists of a squad of bow knights, bow fliers, and magic users. The strategy is 100% player-phase focused, and relies on hit-and-run tactics and outranging the enemy in order to never get hit. It's not the "meta", but I find it more interesting, especially in maps with terrain and obstacles, where I could outright cheese many enemy formations. It's really only in a Three Houses system, where, if you have a vision, you can go and create it.

Of all the Fire Emblem games, Fates is the game I find myself replaying the most. The gameplay is fantastic. I think what I like most about the gameplay is how many options you're given. For example, let's say you have a unit that's struggling with accuracy. You can alleviate that by using a bronze weapon, use attack stance for +10 hit, use Corrin as support for +10 hit, Heartseeker for -20 enemy avoid, Freeze staff for -20 enemy avoid, Fierce Mein for -10 enemy avoid, etc... Obviously, you won't always have all that available, and all those options have opportunity costs and drawbacks, but the point is, you're given those tools. There's also a few small things I like, such as: - As somebody that likes mitigating RNG, Fates's bronze weapons are perfect for giving me a peace of mind. - Most of the mechanics are balanced. For example, I like using attack stance, while others swear by guard stance. - It's way easier to feed kills in this game, using attack stance and weapons that can't double/crit, which is a nice quality-of-life feature. In fact, I use things like javelins more for kill-feeding than their "intended" use. Overall, I feel like I'm given way more freedom to employ my own playstyle, and more control of my fate (pun sorta intended) in Fates than any other Fire Emblem game. The story is honestly a joke, but that's not nearly as bad as I first thought, mainly because: - You only experience the story once, whereas you experience the gameplay multiple times. - None of the other Fire Emblem games have great story either. - The story is so obviously and comically bad that I quickly stopped taking it seriously. I actually prefer that over something like Radiant Dawn or Three Houses, which is more serious, so I get a lot more invested in the story before realizing it's just as flawed.

In theory, lopsided units are great. In theory, they specialize in certain situations. In theory, their teammates can help cover their weaknesses. In practice, nearly every FE game has juggernauts that are strong in all areas. (Like FE6 Miledy and Percival, FE8 Seth, etc.) That makes units that are strong in some areas and weak in others just... bad. (Even so, I like using such units, especially when I'm not tryharding. I find it interesting to find ways to play around their weaknesses and find ways to make their strengths shine.) The only game I can think of that rewards lopsided units is Three Houses on Maddening. The best way to succeed in that game is to have units that are extremely good at one thing. You can stack evade to create a dodgetank. You can stack defense to create a traditional tank. Stacking speed on fast units is your only hope of doubling anything other than armors. Snipers, grapplers, and magic units are player phase nukes that basically only care about str/mag. What you cannot do, is use a "well-rounded" unit, because enemies have way too high stats and will just steamroll such a unit. EDIT: Two more mechanics in Three Houses reward lopsided units. One is the two stat minimum for leveling up. Lopsided units like Lysithea are likely to get their strong stats or force a reroll, while "balanced" units are more likely to get a bad levelup on useless stats. Another is that certifying for a class bumps your stats up to the class minimum, so lopsided units will get all their weak stats bumped up anyway.

War master using Smash with a Killer Axe+?

I see armored mages has already been mentioned, so I'll bring up something closely related: 1-range magic. This is something I occasionally see in hacks, but rarely (if ever) in the mainline games. Magic almost always at least has 1-2 range, but there's no reason it has to be this way. (I guess the reason is that magic users have always been squishy, so in order to make 1-range magic work, you need to have something like the aforementioned armored mages.)

Yes, it's technically lying. Though IMO, it's kind of a "benevolent lying". A lot of people have a poor intuitive grasp on probability and 2RN kind of skews things to be in line with that bias. When I think of 1RN, the first SRPG that comes to mind is Battle for Wesnoth. There's endless complaints about how the RNG is "rigged". 1RN might be more "honest", but it can also be very harsh and unforgiving, especially for a casual player.

That's great, I just hope this project doesn't get abandoned (yet again), especially because it's like, an order of magnitude more ambitious than the original hack.

1. Can I buy multiple S-ranks in New Game+? 2. If I S-rank a bisexual character, then start a New Game+ with the opposite gender Byleth, can I buy back the S-rank with that character?

I'm on the final mission, I picked who I want to marry, but when we have a link together, it's still only the A-rank support bonuses. How do I get S-rank support bonuses?

I'd be interested. Heck, I'd like to see a Lunatic+ guide in general.

Do the Ashen Wolves get a guarantee of at least two stats per level up?

Sometimes, when I attack a monster, I inflict super-effective damage (as indicated by a green checkmark), even when using a "normal" weapon (like a steel lance) using no combat arts. Why does that happen?

When dining with other people, what does the orange arrow next to them mean?

https://imgur.com/9fcnm0P This fighter has an iron axe, and so has 75+2*2 = 79 hit. https://imgur.com/i2Q2YDi Seth has 2*15+13 = 43 avoid. The fighter should have 79-43-15 = 21 displayed hit against him. Both sides have 1 leadership star, so if leadership worked, he should have 21+5-3 = 23 hit. https://imgur.com/NoE3OL2 But he has 21 hit.

It seems like the leadership system doesn't work. All units (both player and enemy) still have the same amount of hit and avoid they would have without it.

Steal is now a skill. You need to be level 5 to learn it.

So apparently, one of the civilians died and I got the Orion's Bolt anyways. This contradicts the information on SF's site that says all three civilians must survive. I dunno, maybe on hard mode they all need to survive?