Randoman Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) So this thread's topic might require a bit of explaining. Skip after the spoilers line if you want to skip straight to the thread topic. Forced recruits (I don't know if there's a more common term for it) are essentially units that are always obtained by the player no matter what you do when progressing through an FE game. So characters like all FE lords, Ogma, Marcus (both FE6 and FE7), and Franz would be considered as forced recruits since you'll always get them on your team no matter what you do. Non-forced recruits are characters that can potentially be skipped due to the way you can obtain/miss out on them. This includes characters that are green/ally/NPC or red/enemy units before recruiting them, characters that can only be obtained in villages, and such. Non-forced recruits would include characters such as Navarre (FE1/11), Lugh, Raven, and Ross. Yes, even units like Kliff, Genny, Clarine, and Dozla are considered to be non-forced recruits, even though the chances of that happening are insanely slim. And maybe FE2 Gray should count? I mean, by saving, resetting, and reloading in the village, you can technically skip him. A forced recruit only run would be a runthrough where you skip out on every non-forced recruit, leaving you with nothing but forced recruited units only. Essentially, we're assuming the worst case scenario of a person blindly playing through an FE game for the first time, not knowing about recruitment by talking to units or visiting villages, and even doing things like somehow getting Clarine rescued by Alan/Lance and not recruiting her or somehow getting Dozla killed as a green unit. I am curious as to how you guys/gals on SF would arrange the various FE game difficulty gaps that'd exist between a full recruitment run and a forced recruits only run (no tower/skirmish/arena abuse allowed). For example, Fire Emblem Gaiden/Echoes would be much more difficult if you stick to forced recruits only (compared to recruiting everyone) since you miss out on tons of characters, so that'd be on the top of the list. Sticking to forced recruits only in Fire Emblem Sacred Stones would hardly make the game more difficult since you get so many units even with skipping out on non-forced units like Joshua, Colm, and Garcia, and most of the forced recruits are really good anyways like all the cavaliers. Also, we are taking difficulty gaps between a full recruit playthrough and a forced recruit only playthrough into consideration when it comes to ordering the FE games, not the difficulty of the forced recruit only playthrough individually, For example, even if people consider FE6 to be a harder game than most FE games, in this list you're only ranking how big a difficulty gap there is between a full recruit playthrough of FE6 and a forced recruit playthrough of FE6 (which, on normal mode, is hardly that bad of a difficulty gap compared to something like Gaiden). For this thread, I'm planning to stick with normal mode only, but if you want to include harder difficulties, go for it. Also, if you want to split FE4 Gen 1 and 2, FE8 Eirika and Ephraim routes, etc. go for it. Though I don't think Eliwood and Hector mode for FE7 need to be split (if you do though, by all means). Also, for FE4 Gen 2, we'll assume everyone that can be a substitute character is a substitute character. Also, since Duessel can't die as a green unit in FE8 Ephraim mode without getting a game over, we'll make an exception for him. I haven't played all FEs yet, but I'll include the ones I have played/am familiar enough with: Gaiden Echoes Binding Blade Blazing Sword Shadow Dragon Mystery of the Emblem New Mystery Awakening Sacred Stones (Eirika) Sacred Stones (Ephraim) Keep in mind, this isn't a typical tier list thread format where you get me to edit the OP. You're supposed to make your own lists since I want to see how the various lists compare with each other. Edited June 5, 2017 by Randoman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darros Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I'd say Thracis 776 would be the hardest with only forced recruitable characters. You'd miss out on the est units in the game and have Lara as your only thief. With the fatigue system in play that would be absolutely insane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X-Naut Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Thracia 776 New Mystery Binding Blade Genealogy Shadow Dragon Sacred Stones Blazing Blade These are all the games I've played. Thracia 776 tops because several key characters are not free recruits. New Mystery comes second for being harder with full recruitment due to the game actively picking on you with character recruitment, including a few free characters (I'm looking at you, Norne). The rest is just a measure of how much the missed characters contribute to any given playthrough compared to your other options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magical Glace Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Well, lets see. In FE6, you lose out on Rutger, which is probably the most notable loss. Earlygame bosses are going to be much harder to kill because of that, though once your Christmas Cavs pick up the load should be lighter. You also won't be able to get the true ending, because you will miss out on Zealot/Juno, Sue/Shin/Dayan, Zeiss, and Douglas. FE7... I don't think there'll be too much trouble. Same for FE8 and FE9, maybe even 10 too. Actually the only missable characters I can think of for 10 are Aran and... um. Is FE10!Haar technically missable? I know you can skip grabbing him in the prologue of Part II, but does that affect the later points where he shows up (ie near the start of Part III)? Am confused. Anyway, FE11. Truthfully most later grabs in FE11 feel... pointless? You get Lena and Caeda either way. FE13 gives you most units. You miss out on Kellam, Donnel, Tharja, and Libra, but these guys usually aren't cornerstones of a team. And since all kids are skippable, there is no need to marry off all the women. I haven't finished the rest. So list: FE6 FE10(? Not sure about how the game handles skipping Haar in 2-P) Literally everything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) I'm inclined to think Maniac Mode PoR would be middle-of-the-road challenging. You get: all the GMs minus Volke, Mia, Shinon and Gatrie (though these two are temporary forced). You also get Elincia and her trio of retainers at the end, plus Tanith, Lethe, Mordecai, Muarim, Ranulf, Tormod, one of Ena and Nasir (you'd probably default to Ena because Nasir requires more effort to get), and one of the Laguz generals. Because Nephenee, Kieran, and Brom must all escape to be recruited on MM, they'd skipped. The absence of Jill and Marcia is saddening- because they're two of the game's best units. You also have no thieves because Sothe and Volke are both optional. No Reyson for refreshing, nor the Hawk duo. And given Haar is optional too, your only flier is Tanith, who while amazing with the nifty Reinforce skill, misses out on a bunch of fights where you'd want wings. Three of the SMs and all of the Generals are skipped too. On the flipside, you do get Her Majesty Queen of early PoR Maniac Mode and the Fairies Titania though, but even she isn't invincible on MM. Oscar and Ike are both great, and to a lesser extent Boyd is, but they all have shaky beginnings. Tanith I already said is excellent. You'll have all the natural healers in Mist, Rhys, and Elincia, and Tormod and Soren got you on the magic side too. Rolf is a trainee who is really bad in Maniac, and is spared from absolutely being benched solely by using a bow over a 1-range weapon and BEXP. Lethe and Mordecai should help you through a painful midgame (and so can allocating the BEXP dump Marcia would normally receive into Oscar and or Boyd). Muarim and Ranulf can fill in for them later though. Lucia and Bastian have very limited uses with the former's bad class and low Defense and the latter's bad stats across the board, and Elincia would stick to healing, but Geoffrey might be salvageable. Ena would be garbage, but Nasir might have a use. Whichever Laguz general you pick wouldn't matter if you ran Wrath+Resolve on Ike. Radiant Dawn on the other hand would be on the easier side. No Heather, but thieving isn't really necessary in RD. No Haar is the biggest problem, but it ain't that bad- Titania can do much of what he can (though certainly not all). No Danved and Calill- hurts the one Crimean Part 3 chapter a bit, but that's really about it. No Aran- he was always second fiddle to Nolan and Jill. No Meg and Fiona? Great, we lost our favorite benchwarmers. Stefan, Oliver, Renning, and Volke are all rarely used, so no real losses here. Losing Gareth is of no concern when we already have Ena, and no Nasir just means you might want to pack a Part 4 Final team of really fast units for the final boss. Edited June 5, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florete Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 1 hour ago, Randoman said: Also, since Duessel can't die as a green unit in FE8 Ephraim mode without getting a game over, we'll make an exception for him. That's not an exception. If the player can't continue without recruiting Duessel, he's a forced recruit. I find this interesting, so I've started compiling lists. I'm only doing the games I know well enough to judge. Binding Blade: Spoiler Forced: Roy Marcus Alan Lance Wolt Bors Merlinus Ellen Dieck Wade Lot Shanna Chad Saul Dorothy Astolfo Lilina Gwendolyn Barth Oujay Lalum Elphin Milady Cecilia Sophia Igrene Fae Nimue Yodel Missable: Lugh Clarine Rutger Sue Zealot Treck Noah Fir Shin Gonzales Geese Klein Tate Echidna Bartre Raigh Cath Perceval Garret Hugh Zeiss Douglas Juno Dayan Karel Missing Clarine, Rutger, and Perceval can be rough, and missing that many units in general could cause problems even though most of them aren't notable on their own. Blazing Blade: Spoiler Forced: Eliwood Marcus Lowen Rebecca Dorcas Bartre Hector Oswin Matthew Serra Merlinus (@ Ch 16/17) Lyn Sain Kent Wil Florina Ninian Isadora Pent Louise Athos Missable: Guy Erk Priscilla Raven Lucius Canas Dart* Fiora Legault Heath Rath Hawkeye Geitz Wallace Farina Karel Harken Nino Jaffar Vaida Karla Renault *Dart is only missable if you go to 16x/17x and kill him. If you skip the side quest, which a blind player likely would, he's not missable. Some pretty good units are missed (Priscilla, Raven, Harken), but no one really essential, especially for normal mode. Sacred Stones: Spoiler Forced: Eirika Seth Franz Gilliam Vanessa Moulder Neimi Artur Natasha Ephraim Kyle Forde Tana (both) Innes (Ephraim) Gerik (Ephraim) Tethys (Ephraim) Saleh (both) Duessel (both) Knoll (both) Myrrh Missable: Ross Garcia Colm Lute Joshua Amelia (both) Innes (Eirika) Gerik (Eirika) Tethys (Eirika) Marisa (both) L'Arachel (both) Dozla (both) Ewan (both) Cormag (both) Rennac (both) Syrene Seth is still here. Eirika could have a bit of trouble without Innes, Gerik, and Tethys, but it's not so bad. Path of Radiance: Spoiler Forced: Ike Titania Oscar Boyd Rhys Shinon (ch 3) Gatrie (ch 3) Soren Mist Rolf Tormod Muarim Tanith Ranulf Bastian Lucia Elincia One of Nasir/Ena One of Tibarn/Naesala/Giffca Missable: Mia Ilyana Marcia Lethe Mordecai Volke Kieran Brom Nephenee Zihark Sothe Jill Astrid Gatrie (ch 13) Makalov Stefan Devdan Reyson Janaff Ulki Shinon (ch 19) Calill Tauroneo Haar Geoffrey? (I feel like his death might cause a game over, but not sure) Largo A surprising amount of missables here. Titania is still there, but a number of good units are missed, including Marcia, Kieran, Jill, Reyson, both thieves... Radiant Dawn: Spoiler Most of the units here are forced, so only listing the missables: Aran Meg Haar Heather Danved Calill Janaff Ulki Pelleas Stefan Oliver Volke Renning Nasir Gareth Lehran I am pretty certain Fiona gives a game over on death, so she would be forced. Losing Haar can hurt, but he's the only really great unit here. Awakening: Spoiler Like RD, most are forced here. Missable: Kellam Donnel Gaius Libra Tharja Anna Say'ri Tiki Non-Lucina children SpotPass recruits Some good units are missed (Tharja, Anna, Morgan, Tiki), but the top players are still around. Birthright: Spoiler Missable: Izana Mozu Hinoka Azama Setsuna Oboro Hinata Reina Yukimura All children Oboro is the most notable loss. You've still got Ryoma. Conquest: Spoiler Missable Shura Izana Mozu Nyx Flora All children Who? Revelation: Spoiler Saizo Orochi Reina Benny Charlotte Shura Nyx Flora Mozu Fuga All children This time we actually miss a few, but no one near essential. You've still got Camilla. Shadows of Valentia: Spoiler Forced: Alm Lukas Gray Tobin Clair Clive Mycen Celica Mae Boey Saber Conrad Missable: Kliff Faye Silque Forsyth Python Luthier Mathilda Delthea Tatiana Zeke Genny Valbar Kamui Leon Palla Catria Atlas Jesse Sonya Deen Est Nomah Holy crap. Have fun doing Celica's route with 5 units. A lot of these are free, but you can choose to skip past them. I think most of them don't change much relatively. SoV is the major exception, with Binding Blade also potentially having some trouble. If I were to list them by difficulty gap it would probably be something like: Shadows of Valentia Binding Blade Path of Radiance Blazing Blade Sacred Stones (Eirika) Radiant Dawn Sacred Stones (Ephraim) Awakening Revelation Birthright Conquest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 1 hour ago, Florete said: Missable Shura Izana Mozu Nyx Flora All children You forgot Keaton, just keep Corrin from talking with him or let him die. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) 15 hours ago, Glaceon Sage said: Well, lets see. In FE6, you lose out on Rutger, which is probably the most notable loss. Earlygame bosses are going to be much harder to kill because of that, though once your Christmas Cavs pick up the load should be lighter. You also won't be able to get the true ending, because you will miss out on Zealot/Juno, Sue/Shin/Dayan, Zeiss, and Douglas. FE7... I don't think there'll be too much trouble. Same for FE8 and FE9, maybe even 10 too. Actually the only missable characters I can think of for 10 are Aran and... um. Is FE10!Haar technically missable? I know you can skip grabbing him in the prologue of Part II, but does that affect the later points where he shows up (ie near the start of Part III)? Am confused. Anyway, FE11. Truthfully most later grabs in FE11 feel... pointless? You get Lena and Caeda either way. FE13 gives you most units. You miss out on Kellam, Donnel, Tharja, and Libra, but these guys usually aren't cornerstones of a team. And since all kids are skippable, there is no need to marry off all the women. I haven't finished the rest. So list: FE6 FE10(? Not sure about how the game handles skipping Haar in 2-P) Literally everything else. Yeah if you don't talk to Haar in 2-P he's gone for good. Missed him on my first playthrough when Radiant Dawn was my first game and I though Haar was a new enemy so I avoided him! Sure I was stupid for thinking a green unit would attack me but in my defense he dressed in black, rode a dragon and had an eye patch. For the uninitiated he does look like a villain. 15 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said: I'm inclined to think Maniac Mode PoR would be middle-of-the-road challenging. You get: all the GMs minus Volke, Mia, Shinon and Gatrie (though these two are temporary forced). You also get Elincia and her trio of retainers at the end, plus Tanith, Lethe, Mordecai, Muarim, Ranulf, Tormod, one of Ena and Nasir (you'd probably default to Ena because Nasir requires more effort to get), and one of the Laguz generals. Because Nephenee, Kieran, and Brom must all escape to be recruited on MM, they'd skipped. The absence of Jill and Marcia is saddening- because they're two of the game's best units. You also have no thieves because Sothe and Volke are both optional. No Reyson for refreshing, nor the Hawk duo. And given Haar is optional too, your only flier is Tanith, who while amazing with the nifty Reinforce skill, misses out on a bunch of fights where you'd want wings. Three of the SMs and all of the Generals are skipped too. On the flipside, you do get Her Majesty Queen of early PoR Maniac Mode and the Fairies Titania though, but even she isn't invincible on MM. Oscar and Ike are both great, and to a lesser extent Boyd is, but they all have shaky beginnings. Tanith I already said is excellent. You'll have all the natural healers in Mist, Rhys, and Elincia, and Tormod and Soren got you on the magic side too. Rolf is a trainee who is really bad in Maniac, and is spared from absolutely being benched solely by using a bow over a 1-range weapon and BEXP. Lethe and Mordecai should help you through a painful midgame (and so can allocating the BEXP dump Marcia would normally receive into Oscar and or Boyd). Muarim and Ranulf can fill in for them later though. Lucia and Bastian have very limited uses with the former's bad class and low Defense and the latter's bad stats across the board, and Elincia would stick to healing, but Geoffrey might be salvageable. Ena would be garbage, but Nasir might have a use. Whichever Laguz general you pick wouldn't matter if you ran Wrath+Resolve on Ike. Radiant Dawn on the other hand would be on the easier side. No Heather, but thieving isn't really necessary in RD. No Haar is the biggest problem, but it ain't that bad- Titania can do much of what he can (though certainly not all). No Danved and Calill- hurts the one Crimean Part 3 chapter a bit, but that's really about it. No Aran- he was always second fiddle to Nolan and Jill. No Meg and Fiona? Great, we lost our favorite benchwarmers. Stefan, Oliver, Renning, and Volke are all rarely used, so no real losses here. Losing Gareth is of no concern when we already have Ena, and no Nasir just means you might want to pack a Part 4 Final team of really fast units for the final boss. On the subject of my rather clueless first playthrough of Fire Emblem, aside from Haar I also missed Aran, Stefan, Oliver, Gareth and Nasir and still managed to beat the game with relatively little trouble (for a first time player). How is Renning missible? If you don't recruit Bastian? Edited June 6, 2017 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) 4 hours ago, Jotari said: How is Renning missible? If you don't recruit Bastian? According to the RD recruitment page here on SF- skip his Base Conversation at the beginning of P4 Final and he won't join. And I stand corrected- Geoffrey can die in PoR pre-recruitment, there is plenty of alternate dialogue which only happens if he's dead. And though having not played T776, I noticed no one has heavily illuminated who you miss out on in that game. You lose: Spoiler Ronan (no sweat) Safy (Eeeee! Not a precious staff user! And no Hammerne.) Lifis (there goes our first thief- pack lightly for Manster!) Dalsin (no prob) Asbel (Isn't he the Rutger of FE5 when to comes to bosskilling? Plus he's our first mage. A terrible loss.) Hicks (who?) Shiva (A Navarre with nice stats- but necessary? Not so much.) Marty (aka the joke guy with 0 base Speed- he won't be missed) Are Dagdar and Tanya missable? (outside of killing them as playable allies- which doesn't count) Fred and Olwen (so there goes magic user no. 2) Salem, Troude, Perne, Tina (so there goes magic user no. 3 and another healer) Homer (magic user no. 4) Ralph (never heard of them) Everyone from both sides of the route split (so two more magic users, one or two more staffers, and the Silver Card or a pair of wings, and then later we miss on another staffer in Amalda or another fighter in Conomor) Xavier- Oh my Crusader! It isn't like his recruitment is so nefariously difficult that a lot of people do without him already! Whatever will we do!?! If we kill Nanna off, Diarmuid is lost to us as well. Ced (We'll have to try out Saias for once, revel in the glorious +6 hit/evade over Ced he offers!) Galzus (so we lose our second Gotoh) And Eyvel (whose resurrection is really just for a happy plot, she ain't useful anymore by this point. Also, would it have been better for the plot if she was struck dead in C5 with no hopes of returning to life rather than petrified?) In summary: Nanna is our only staffbot until Linoan joins, and Linoan is our only magic user until Saias (who is also our third healer). Given what I've heard of fatigue issues affecting healers heavily in this game- this isn't very good. And while Olwen and Daim Thunder was always an acquired taste, everyone acknowledges Asbel and Grafcalibur are precious (though non-full recruitment LTCers do without him), so to lose Merric 2.0 is bad. As someone else pointed out, we also lose two of our thieves, and because Lara's talk with Perne ends in recruiting him, we lose her as our Dancer too. And returning to Saias, no Forseti and no Galzus cuts into our cheesers for the final fights. Dagdar might constitute a significant loss too if he is missable (but his value is always being debated). We also lose the Bragi Scroll (which we'd miss if we chose the non-Sleuf route anyhow), but surprisingly nothing else really in terms of items due to Capture existing and many potential recruits starting as enemies. On the bright side- Finn and his Brave Lance and Othin/Osian/Orsin/Orwhateveryouwanttocallhim and his Pugi are still around. Marita can go and butcher things with her sword too with a little babying. Karin, Deen, and Est the Dracoknight gives us a near complete airforce (the complete airforce depending on your route choice). Halvan and Machyua add to our footies, and we get most of the cavalry. So physically, we still have plenty of units to use. Edited June 6, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said: According to the RD recruitment page here on SF- skip his Base Conversation at the beginning of P4 Final and he won't join. And I stand corrected- Geoffrey can die in PoR pre-recruitment, there is plenty of alternate dialogue which only happens if he's dead. And though having not played T776, I noticed no one has heavily illuminated who you miss out on in that game. You lose: Hide contents Ronan (no sweat) Safy (Eeeee! Not a precious staff user! And no Hammerne.) Lifis (there goes our first thief- pack lightly for Manster!) Dalsin (no prob) Asbel (Isn't he the Rutger of FE5 when to comes to bosskilling? Plus he's our first mage. A terrible loss.) Hicks (who?) Shiva (A Navarre with nice stats- but necessary? Not so much.) Marty (aka the joke guy with 0 base Speed- he won't be missed) Are Dagdar and Tanya missable? (outside of killing them as playable allies- which doesn't count) Fred and Olwen (so there goes magic user no. 2) Salem, Troude, Perne, Tina (so there goes magic user no. 3 and another healer) Homer (magic user no. 4) Ralph (never heard of them) Everyone from both sides of the route split (so two more magic users, one or two more staffers, and the Silver Card or a pair of wings, and then later we miss on another staffer in Amalda or another fighter in Conomor) Xavier- Oh my Crusader! It isn't like his recruitment is so nefariously difficult that a lot of people do without him already! Whatever will we do!?! If we kill Nanna off, Diarmuid is lost to us as well. Ced (We'll have to try out Saias for once, revel in the glorious +6 hit/evade over Ced he offers!) Galzus (so we lose our second Gotoh) And Eyvel (whose resurrection is really just for a happy plot, she ain't useful anymore by this point. Also, would it have been better for the plot if she was struck dead in C5 with no hopes of returning to life rather than petrified?) In summary: Nanna is our only staffbot until Linoan joins, and Linoan is our only magic user until Saias (who is also our third healer). Given what I've heard of fatigue issues affecting healers heavily in this game- this isn't very good. And while Olwen and Daim Thunder was always an acquired taste, everyone acknowledges Asbel and Grafcalibur are precious (though non-full recruitment LTCers do without him), so to lose Merric 2.0 is bad. As someone else pointed out, we also lose two of our thieves, and because Lara's talk with Perne ends in recruiting him, we lose her as our Dancer too. And returning to Saias, no Forseti and no Galzus cuts into our cheesers for the final fights. Dagdar might constitute a significant loss too if he is missable (but his value is always being debated). We also lose the Bragi Scroll (which we'd miss if we chose the non-Sleuf route anyhow), but surprisingly nothing else really in terms of items due to Capture existing and many potential recruits starting as enemies. On the bright side- Finn and his Brave Lance and Othin/Osian/Orsin/Orwhateveryouwanttocallhim and his Pugi are still around. Marita can go and butcher things with her sword too with a little babying. Karin, Deen, and Est the Dracoknight gives us a near complete airforce (the complete airforce depending on your route choice). Halvan and Machyua add to our footies, and we get most of the cavalry. So physically, we still have plenty of units to use. Pretty sure Dagda and Tanya are missible. I mean you have to go and do a whole Gaiden to rerecruit them. I'd find it slightly strange if they just joined regardless. You actually raise a good narrative question about Eyvel. Could make for an interesting thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slumber Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) 23 hours ago, Darros said: I'd say Thracis 776 would be the hardest with only forced recruitable characters. You'd miss out on the est units in the game and have Lara as your only thief. With the fatigue system in play that would be absolutely insane. To be fair, 776 has like, 4 or 5 Ests(Homer, Linoan, Sara, Miranda, Sleuf. They all are recruited more than halfway through the game and start low leveled, but have very high growths). However, only Linoan is forced to join, so yeah. Thracia is hard enough on its own, but it probably has the biggest optional-to-forced recruitment ratio in the franchise. And a few of the units who are forced recruits in the first chunk of the game become optional recruits later in the game, so it's extra screwy. Edited June 6, 2017 by Slumber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 51 minutes ago, Jotari said: I'd find it slightly strange if they just joined regardless. The recruitment page on this site puts their re-recruitment chapter at 8/8x. I was a little confused not having played T776, but reading the C8 script, it appears that if one of Dagdar and Tanya are dead by C8's end, the other will join at the Chapter 8's end without the gaiden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ping Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 FE6's earlygame is quite a bit harder without Rutger, especially on HM, but I guess Deke can replicate him to an extend. Henning will take some time without the SM crit bonus, but Hero!Deke with maybe some support by a rescue/dropped Lugh should be able to wittle him down. After that, Rutger becomes less obligatory anyway, Milady recruits herself anyway, and Perceval can reasonably be replaced if you promote both Allen and Lance, I guess. You do lose out on quite a few nice temporarily useful units, though - Klain, Bartre/Echidna, Jerrot... FE7 doesn't seem to dramatic to me, although having only one flyer might be annoying if you want to play fast. But both Marcus and Pent are forced, and I don't think any other unit is nearly as impactful as they are. Seth is forced, so that's that. Losing Amelia seems like a particularly hard blow, though... The sheer number of missable recruits in PoR is surprising. Not counting Maniac Mode, I still don't think it would make the game much harder, since everyone in PoR can fight decent enough, but definitely slower. Losing both Marcia and Jill, most mounts in general, as well as Reyson, would really suck. Haar's mobility would actually be missed in some of the earlier chapters, so that alone would make a difference. The other recruits honestly hardly matter, except for a few steals by Heather, I guess. FE11 I don't know well enough to make a informed statement. ;) In FE12, you keep the recruits from the prologue including the Avatar, you keep Catria and Palla... Malicia is optional, but I don't think it would be a big deal to replace her with Sage!Arran or so until Wrys and Yumina arrive. The endgame would play out differently though - Sirius, Minerva and Julian are optional, so you'll have to murder Nyna, Maria and Lena. :/ You'd also have to go through the game thiefless, so Marth would be pretty busy ;) I can't quite remember how the chest key situation is, though. -- So, out ot the games I've played, I would list 6 and (surprisingly for me) 9 as the ones where this would make the biggest impact. In all the other games, the effect seems to be relatively small except for some select points in some of the games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irysa Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 (edited) I think you need to define if we need to get the good ending or not, as both FE6 and FE3B2/12 require you to recruit particular characters in order to properly finish the game. They are as follows FE6: Zeiss (needed for 21x), Zealot and Juno (20Ix), Sue Shin and Dayan (20Sx), Douglas (16x) FE3B2/12: Minerva (comes with a Shard, is recruited from a village, cannot be killed for it). Edited June 6, 2017 by Irysa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randoman Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 1 hour ago, Irysa said: I think you need to define if we need to get the good ending or not, as both FE6 and FE3B2/12 require you to recruit particular characters in order to properly finish the game. I don't think the good ending should be a requirement, since we're assuming a blind player playing FE3/6/12 (and them doing worst case scenario things, barring letting forced playable units die since preventing playable characters from dying is a pretty universal rule in video games) and they very likely won't get the good ending during their first playthrough without a guide. Also, since there was a mention of using Lugh in a forced character playthrough without Rutger, I thought I should point out that Lugh is a non-forced unit since you can miss him by not visiting the village he's in. On a similar note, Lute is actually a forced character (it's an easy mistake, though). Lute is automatically recruited in FE8 Chapter 4 even if you don't visit her village. There's also no way to get that village destroyed by any of the monsters (trust me, I've even tried using Vanessa to lure enemies on that village, but they don't ever destroy it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darros Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 5 hours ago, Slumber said: To be fair, 776 has like, 4 or 5 Ests(Homer, Linoan, Sara, Miranda, Sleuf. They all are recruited more than halfway through the game and start low leveled, but have very high growths). However, only Linoan is forced to join, so yeah. Thracia is hard enough on its own, but it probably has the biggest optional-to-forced recruitment ratio in the franchise. And a few of the units who are forced recruits in the first chunk of the game become optional recruits later in the game, so it's extra screwy. Whoops! I totally meant best rather than Est, but that's pretty true. A minimal recruitment FE5 run would force you to use pretty much everyone you have so a unit like Linoan who grows well could be really damn useful in the long run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Refa Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 24 minutes ago, Darros said: Whoops! I totally meant best rather than Est, but that's pretty true. A minimal recruitment FE5 run would force you to use pretty much everyone you have so a unit like Linoan who grows well could be really damn useful in the long run. I've been chipping away at an FE5 minimum recruitment run and Linoan has been pretty great. Not going fast at all, though, such as having Nanna spam heal while Lara went around to get the super out of the way chest in Chapter 5. She's currently at C staves at the moment, but if I can achieve Warp!Nanna, then I'm basically the best. Also you can definitely skip Dagda and Tanya by just not capturing the boss of Chapter 8. You actually need to skip most of the gaidens because they have autojoining units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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