Marco

If I like a game enough I'll at least try out its harder difficulty modes. MGS is my favorite game series so I felt like I had to beat those games on extreme, lol. The problem with FE difficulty modes is the same issue I have with difficulty modes in most rpgs. Typically uping the difficulty is just inflating stats. This can be a good challenge but is usually just a test of patience. I played fe13 lunatic (not + ffs) and 16 maddening cuz ... well I dont know why, stupidity? Fe9 is my favorite fe so naturally I wanted to get it into my hardest difficulty club but I just couldnt be *assed*. I think with fe13 and 16 those modes were difficult (for the wrong reasons imo) so beating them had this weird proud factor to them... maybe I'm a masochist. The problem is fe9 mm is just... a slog. Its not hard, its just a test of patience but in a very different way. The real challenge is staying awake and focused while you just deal with a pile of enemies and their phases lasting like 5 hours. I didnt beat it, its just too tedious imo.

Man, I remember reading about this some years ago, about some MADMAN who was trying to ironman L+ and after a lot of planning actually pulled it off. Now I come back to find that he's done it loads of times. After I beat lunatic I said "hell no" to even trying to lunatic+, I felt like I made my point, lol. Maybe someday I'll give it a go myself but rather try to get around to playing the rest of the games in the series. Glad to see you are still at it and I am defo gonna be taking a look at how you handle certain maps... like y'know... chapter 2.

More or less reaffirming what has already been said. No reason not to forge, especially basic weapons like training/iron/steel etc. Forging training weapons I find to especially worth it, even more so on maddening where you really need to get the upper hand on AS... or at least *try* to.

Just make sure your house units are ready for chapter 13. If those guys aren't leveled enough then chapter 13 is gonna be an absolute nightmare. You could even say that it'd be... maddening... Er... anyway... there's nothing wrong with training folk outside your house but make sure your BL boys are in tip top shape.

Let me impart some of my... er... "wisdom" if I may. For the love of all things holy, make sure you focus up on your house characters. You likely know which chapter I'm referring to when I say this, but if you neglected the characters that are a part of your house, you will have SERIOUSLY bad time. I was playing on casual like a pansy and I still thought I softlocked myself on that chapter. I managed to do some 4D chees to complete the chapter but only 1 unit was left standing so uhh... yeah.

Recently completed GOTHW (fe4) and I must say I enjoyed it quite a lot. I can see what its not everyone's cup of tea. FE1 and 2 are fine to experience but not something I would actively choose to play. FE3 I haven't tried yet but I intend to, and I am in the middle of FE5.

Chuck a good shield on him and he can act as bait for the rest of your boys to ruin. That's how I used him at least.

Awakening is what I refer to as a "junk food" kinda game. It's not gonna be the best game you ever played, and maybe isin't great for you, but its fun to just play. I started with Awakening and I still think rather highly of it, but I will admit that it doesn't offer much in the way of challenge... or thinking. There *is* lunatic but no, I beat it once and never again.

I will be the first to admit that this game wont be everyone's cup of tea. It's slow as hell and not very pleasing to the eye. I'd like for them to not really remake the game but re-release it with some tweaks like allowing skipping turns and working on the difficulty. It's my favorite Fire Emblem but I'm only able to play it a lot cuz of speeding through the enemy phase via emulation. Dolphin *does* have ways to speed up the game, tab is the default key that if you hold it down, disables the speedcap. That said it is limited based on how fast your PC can actually emulate the game.

To kind of add on/echo what other folk have said. I love PoR but I honestly couldn't be assed to complete the game on maniac mode. It starts off difficult but, as others have stated, it kinda gets easy as your units grow in power. The main rise in difficulty is the abundance of enemies... I guess cutting your bonus exp kinda sucks but I never really relied on it. If you want to make your life easier, I recommend on having a completed save of the game. This will unlock various rings/bands that can increase the growth rates just a bit based on the type of ring. You'll have to look up what each does as the ingame description kinda sucks. There's also the option of fixed growth rates which doesn't make the game easier but could prevent you from getting screwed by bad growth RNG. As much as I love this game though, its slow as all hell and that's why I just didn't finish it. Chapters end up taking forever and I felt like the real challenge was just a test of patience. Overall its fine, just less hard and more tedious. If you thought the base game was boring, I think you'll despise this mode.

I'm sure I could have done the run a lot better but... Honestly, I tried to just get it over with just so I could say I did it. I diden't really plan much, I tried to have some more units as part of the team that did me well up into the late game. Morgan and Lucina were well trained but for the last few levels, I just used those four units to get it over with. Again, I really don't have any desire to go back to lunatic. I've played a lot of fire emblem hard modes and... yeah, they make your life hell. But lunatic was just not enjoyable for me. I am not gonna say it's impossible cuz I know people can beat lunatic plus without restarting, keeping their units alive, not using DLC, etc. I just don't like the way the challenge was implemented. If it's something that others enjoy, more power to them but... I'm just glad it's over. Maybe some day in the future I'll do a more refined run but... that's if I get more time to plan things out proper.

So, I just recently completed lunatic, took about 3 days. My goal was to beat the game without using any DLC or streetpass. Renown and spotpass were free game. I also wanted no deaths. I managed to pull it off by using the water trick (of course) and I found ways to abuse the early game skirmishes to get some of my units ahead of the game. The renown bonus helped with buying tonics and stuff. I didn't follow any guides, other then how to do the water trick to get Robin started. My end team was: Hero!Donnel, Nowi, Sorc!Robin, Chrom Not a large team at all but none of my other units could keep up and I found it much more viable to keep the EXP spread minimum and just blaze through the game because... honestly, I really didn't enjoy lunatic. But I can at least say I beat it without having to resort to DLC, which I really wanted to avoid. Maybe I'll do a run where I abuse the hell out of DLC now cuz... dammit, I just want to feel like a super hero, lol.

I think I'm doing this right... I hope, Hero!Silas: Killing Edge

For me, I have not touched Fates much since echoes came out. I played and beaten all 3 versions, though I may go back to play conquest. I am currently playing Fire Emblem Awakening on lunatic and abusing the DLC cuz... honestly, the lunatic mode on Awakening is rather silly. I likely wont be touching echoes for a while as, whilst I love that game, I did two runs back to back. One where I did 0 grinding (that was hell...), and one where I am making my characters broken so I can feel like a super hero. But yea, I am taking the time right now to try other fire emblem games. I will return to Fates at some stage though.

Ike, or more specifically, PoR Ike. I really like the fact that he is not some prince or dragon person or child of fate or whatever. He's just a dude who is *really* good with a sword. As for the worst... Yea, easily Corrin. Just... UGH.