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Just Finished My First Ironman. Some Thoughts and Observations


Hawkwing
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“No hard feelings.”

And with that, Lon’qu crits Gangrel, ending the first arc of the game, and 1/3 of my ironman run of hard mode.

I started it sometime last week, and so far I’ve lost Vaike on the level he appears (and found out the hard way that any items lost before the preparations screen becomes available is gone for good) as well as Nowi, Tharja, and Gaius on the level you recruit Anna. Needless to say, my thoughts on hard mode have definitely changed.

First of all, the enemy quality and quantity are definitely greater than in normal mode. Being able to ORKO an enemy unit is now a rarity rather than the norm, and I noticed that they are much more willing to move even when a unit isn’t in range. I was surprised at how aggressive they were, and early on, it actually took me off guard to the point that I had to retreat a few times, which is definitely a rarity for me in Fire Emblem, and I actually lost Vaike because I wasn’t expecting them to attack while I was licking my wounds. And they also hit pretty hard, as the number of times where a unit took a hit that almost killed them, or when everyone barely survived the fight, would probably get someone killed if they did a drinking game. Needless to say, I remembered why I had trouble with Hard mode in past playthroughs, and why I once believed I would never play the difficulty on classic.

At first, I thought that people telling me that grinding was a waste of time on hard mode was simply because reeking boxes are much more expensive than on normal. Instead, I took one look at the enemy stats, and realized that while normal difficulty essentially gives the experience to you, on hard, you have to earn it. And relevant to experience, I also realize that my statement about Donnel being easy to train applies much less on Hard mode than I originally thought. He barely dents the enemies, if at all, and I often found that I couldn’t put him on the front lines or bring him into a level as often as I’d like, as some of my stronger units had trouble staying alive. He is most certainly still usable, but you have to go even more out of your way to get some mileage out of him on the higher difficulties.

As for ambush spawns… well, it’s still my most hated mechanic in all of Fire Emblem, but a friend recommended to look up a guide for each level, and you know what? It… actually made the levels not as bad. Knowing when and where reinforcements would arrive, as well as knowing which class would appear, helped tremendously with planning and strategizing. I knew when I should prioritize blocking forts, and when it was okay to advance on the enemy. I had to think about which enemies I needed to take out and which forts to cover, as well as which ones I would leave alive and which forts I would allow the reinforcements to come from. This simple search made this mechanic go from something I dreaded to something that added another layer of strategy to the game. It still baffles me though why there wasn’t any visual indication of when reinforcements would arrive. A simple caution sign over forts where reinforcements would appear next turn could have done the trick, while still leaving the exact class the enemy would appear in ambiguous. It would most certainly have been less of a hassle than having to have my phone or computer on just to look up the level to see when and where reinforcements would appear.

On a more positive note, I do like how the increased enemy quality and quantity not only increases the difficulty legitimately (although they went overboard on Lunatic), but it also prevents benching and characters becoming one-man armies. It took more than one unit to take some enemies down, meaning that the experience was distributed more evenly, meaning that a number of units that tend to fall behind stay around longer, or they even remain till the end. I also learned the hard way that simply throwing a powerful unit at the enemy wouldn’t automatically solve the problem as it would on normal, and I remember that in past playthroughs on hard, Chrom was the only overpowered character, and that’s because I abused the fact that he’s forced into every level. And a bright side to how much damage your units take is that it makes legitimately leveling up healers much easier and faster. Heck, Lissa was the first character to reach level 10.

While I still have my problems with it objectively (namely, the fact that (almost) every first generation female is technically two units, the odd distribution and overall lack of axe-wielding units, and how losing a child character is comparable to throwing away half the game (an exaggeration, yes, but the child characters do appear at or past the half-way mark)), Awakening handles ironmanning much better than I originally thought it did. Reclassing allows you to sacrifice one units role to fit another, and I realize that losing a potential child character isn’t as disastrous as I thought it would be. I also found that you have to be wiser with seals on hard difficulty, as not only are they rarer, but but you also have to choose who to promote and reclass, as well as when, and that can get tricky when there are several candidates that could make good use out of both seals.

Overall, I’m beginning to see why ironmanning is so common among Fire Emblem players, and I’ve been gaining a newfound respect of what Awakening does right.

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  • 4 weeks later...
2 hours ago, ChickenWings said:

Will you do another ironman run?

I'm kinda still doing the hard mode one I mentioned above. I haven't played the game in weeks, though, and that's mostly due to college starting up again. I don't really have the free time to play a game that can go for more than an hour at the moment.

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1 hour ago, ChickenWings said:

What is ironman mode anyways?

You play through a Fire Emblem game and you cannot reset when a unit dies (this requires you to be playing on classic mode in later games).

Edited by IfIHadToPickADude
I don't think unit ever had an e in it. But I accidentally put one there anyways.
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1 hour ago, IfIHadToPickADude said:

You play through a Fire Emblem game and you cannot reset when a unit dies (this requires you to be playing on classic mode in later games).

That reads like fun! Imma try a high deploy, ironman mode for Lunatic. File is deleted if Chrom or Robin die or if I try to reset.

Imma go for my usual rules:

No DLC/grind

No bonus box

No barracks or sparklies (unless I HAVE to be on that tile)

Renown to 1000

Will add that I can't go to Anna shops!

 

Edited by ChickenWings
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  • 1 month later...
On 8/3/2018 at 7:30 PM, Hawkwing said:

Yesterday, I finished my first ironman run of Awakening. It was also a "no grinding" run (although I will admit that I didn't always follow that rule, even though two of the encounters were due to an enemy blocking a shop in the early game, when there aren't a whole lot of alternatives yet). I've decided to share some of my overall thoughts on both the Ironman and the game as a whole. I've separated my thoughts with spoilers, as they ended up longer than I thought it would be.

Deaths

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  • Donnel failed to dodge an enemy cavalier on chapter 8. Annoyingly, gaining a single point of defense after a level-up would have (barely) saved his life. That, and Kellam didn't dual guard, although he did avenge Donnels death by critting his murderer.
  • On Chapter 11 (Gangrels chapter), I moved Maribelle in to save a wounded Fredrick from certain death... before realizing that she was in the range of two enemy units. She didn't bother to dodge, and Fredrick didn't dual guard.
  • A reclassed Frederick (I made him a wyvern rider) died near the very end of the same chapter. He missed an 80% chance to hit, and he didn't bother dodging.
  • Olivia took a tomahawk to the face on Tiki's paralogue, and decided that the war life wasn't for her.
  • Libra...damn it...Libra died only three chapters away from the finale. A berserker had a 52% chance to hit and a 14% chance to crit, and the bastard did triple damage against the unit, and character, that had grown on me the most. Not gonna lie, losing him really made the end game bittersweet and numb to go through. He was avenged by his son, Yarne, who got a bullion out of the encounter as I had reclassed him into a barbarian.
  • Stahl died on the level right before Grima. Shot in the face with a Thoron, it was a mediocre end to an RNG screwed unit that I usually use.

Pairings

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  • Chrom X Sully in the forced event. For some reason reason, Sully is considered one of the worst females to pair Chrom up with, but I heavily disagree. I find Sully to be among the most reliable (and sometimes best) units in the game, and she often has the stats of a front-line fighter, which gives Lucina great starting stats. That, and I find Sumia to be too weak strength and defense wise for my liking, Maribelle died, Robin was a male this run, and I rarely, if ever, use Olivia.
  • Vaike X Lissa. A common pairing I use. Him having high HP but low defense makes him good staff exp for Lissa. That, and they support very quickly.
  • Kellam X Cordelia, as the stat boosts when paired up solve both their problems (Kellam gives Cordelia defense and strength, and Cordelia gives Kellam a much needed speed boost), and Cordelia’s high movement means she can carry Kellam to the front lines easily, and if the situation calls for it, switch to Kellam to tank the enemy forces.
  • Stahl X Cherche. On the level Cherche appeared, Stahl was eventually injured, so I paired them up to prevent his potential death. They stuck by each other the entire run, mostly because Stahl was RNG screwed a bit (still competent, but a far cry from how he usually performs for me) and worked better as a support unit for a character that pretty much broke the game in half for me.
  • Panne X Libra. This pairing mostly came about as I wanted to keep Panne alive when she was a thief, and Libra was fit for the job. They had surprisingly good synergy gameplay-wise, and made for a good team, even when I reclassed Panne into a wyvern rider.
  • Ricken X Miriel. Another pairing I use quite often. Admittedly, I grinded to reach their S-support, but that was actually to test and see if the “3 support points max between characters each map” thing was true (it is). That, and I wanted Laurent.
  • Laruent X Lucina. Perhaps the only child pairing I can reliably get (to the point where I “ship” them as a gameplay in-joke). No joke, they married right before the fight with Grima. I suppose Laurent killing Aversa point blank with a Superior Jolt made Lucina realize that he was the man for her.

And Robin made a vow of celibacy.

For the record, I only grinded four times total, and here's why:

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  1. The first was during the early game, where a risen was at the only shop available that sold a weapon I needed.
  2. The second time was a similar situation. This time, though, I was also a little ticked that I had accidentally brought Kellam instead of Stahl to support Cherche during the Mila Tree chapter, and thus wasted an opportunity to gain support points. Especially since Kellam didn't dual guard or attack at all, thus not gaining any experience, making bringing him a waste. Thus, I used the opportunity to gain back those lost support points. I also tried to get Panne and Lon’qu to level 10. Lon’qu didn’t, Panne did, and so I reclassed her into a thief.
  3. Panne and Gaius were so close to level 10 after reclassing (Panne was still a thief, Gaius was a fighter), it almost hurt, so I did a single grinding chapter. After they reached their goals, I reclassed Panne into a wyvern rider and promoted Gaius into a hero.
  4. After (re)reading how supports mechanically work on Serenes Forest, I noticed that, according to the website, Miriel and Ricken only needed to fight together once to reach their S-support. So, I grinded to see if this was true. It was.

Main Thoughts on the Gameplay, Story, etc.

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  • Awakenings biggest strength is how much it allows the player to play as they wish. Want to solo the game with a single character? You can do that. Want to use nothing but axes? Feel free to try it. Want to combine challenges? There’s nothing stopping you. About the only things this game misses in this area is a New Game +, a randomizer, and the option to officially set these up instead of being self-imposed challenges.
  • I believe that Awakening is one of the best games in the series for using whomever you want as well. Not thee best (A reason I love Echoes so much is the fact that since every unit is deployed, everyone has a chance to pull their weight. I’ve heard Tharcia is also pretty good with unit viability, but I haven’t played that game, so I can’t say for sure) but it’s most certainly up there.
  • I noticed that durability was the most important aspect I looked for in a character. Defense become one of the stats I looked for the most in a unit, as well as speed and strength/magic (to avoid doubling and to actually hurt the enemy, respectfully). In a normal classic run, I accepted a character for what it was, and if someone died, I restarted the map to pick a better person for a job and/or alter my tactics. For ironmaning, though, I was not offered this luxury, and thus cared a lot more about a units survivability than I usually did.
  • Similarly, I almost always used stat boosters immediately in a normal playthrough, but since I didn't want any of them to go to waste on a character that might die, I was a lot more hesitant to decide whether to give one to the person that needed it or to the person who I use more frequently.
  • I almost forgot how much I hate reinforcements in this game. Seriously, at times this is the sole reason I don’t jump at replaying this game. Whose bright idea was it to rarely/never give a warning when they'll arrive? And don't get me started on the reinforcements that move on the same turn they spawn…(seriously, it's the only reason I haven't played Hard difficulty on classic).
  • That being said, a morbid part of me wants to ironman this game on Hard difficulty, just to see how many units die due to reinforcements, how many die due to the enemy getting lucky, and how many are actually my fault.
  • I love/hate the support system of this game. On the one hand, It’s much faster than the “stand next to a unit for X amount of turns” system (which I’m also not a fan of, considering I prioritize completing the level as efficiently as I can, which means I don’t like wasting turns or forcing units to be together if they could be put to better use elsewhere, but that’s an argument for another day). On the other hand, it often gets annoying for the slower pairings, as you gain little from putting two characters through thick and thin, when they could have only fought or interacted three times at most and made the same amount of progress. It also means that units that weren’t built/ready for the front-line have a slower/harder time gaining support points.
  • This is a bit of a complaint I have about the series as a whole, but there really needs to be a way to predict a units dodge chance from the preparations screen, instead of having to find out the hard way, or having to go to Serenes Forest and doing several mathematical problems.
  • Similarly, a way to see growth rates would be nice, but I find this complaint more relevant for other games in the series. I found Awakening to be good at making every unit viable so no experience goes to waste, even though it did have a bad influence on the developers for balancing Lunatic mode.
  • Getting non-front line fighters to level 15 can be a massive pain. Even some of my best promoted units had a hard time reaching that mile-mark. It’s honestly a reason I find galeforce to be overrated.
  • I made a point to unlock every chest I could this time around. A reason I made Panne a thief before making her a wyvern rider was to have a spare unit with locktouch (and to give her +1 movement). You get some pretty good items from them, but there are times when they really slow down the pace of a level.
  • Although I understand why every level has at least one Archer and/or magic user with wind spells after a certain point, as it prevents the player from blitzing the map with Pegasus and wyvern riders, I think they went overboard at points. While in makes sense at some points (chapter 13 (where Henry appears) comes to mind, as a flyer could easily cheese the level otherwise), other times, there are way too many on maps where a flyer won’t really break much. I remember that in my earlier playthroughs of the game, I was so intimidated by the number and range of archers and wind wielding magic-users that I outright benched all the flyers. Although I most certainly got better at using those classes every time I replay the game, even in this playthrough there were points where I only brought flyers along to provide pair-up bonuses to someone.
  • I am curious why this game doesn't have reaver weapons. There are enough classes that only wield one weapon to make them worthwhile, and it would put an interesting spin on some maps where you have to deal with, say, a berserker that’s good against swords, or a swordmaster that strong against lances.
  • I personally found the early game the most challenging yet most fun part of the game:
    • Everyone is viable, yet you have to be careful as few characters are overpowered yet, so the chance of someone dying will be largely due to bad tactics.
    • You have limited funds, so you have to think about what weapons to buy and when to do so.
    • The enemy bullcrap is at a minimum, especially when compared to the later parts of the game.
  • Kudos to it being a genuinely difficult level, and for it being an excellent “wake up call” that the game is no longer screwing around, but I hate how Chapter 12 basically makes half of your army worthless and forces the other half to be your A-Team.
  • Although I will praise the Valm arc for being legitimately challenging and having some decent-to-good maps, I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the jump in enemy stats. It seemed like more and more units fell back and couldn't catch up to the rise in difficulty, meaning that by the end, I was basically bringing in a universal team of nearly game breaking units just because it seemed like one or two (un)lucky hits from the enemy wouldn't kill them. That being said, I do like the challenge this part of the game offers, as even a single wrong move could still cost you your best unit, and there were some enemies strong enough where even tanks get dented, so this part of the game is far from brain-dead.
  • I found the endgame to be the most boring part of the game, honestly. The maps aren't interesting, the levels overstay their welcome, and the generic plot at this point doesn't help. On the bright side, this is also the point of the game where several of your units are overpowered, and you no longer have to hoard your better weapons, so you can see your favorite characters wreck everything with legendary weapons you almost forgot existed.
  • Despite skipping the cutscenes this time around, I do want to give my two cents on the plot:
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It’s an overall okay story that I believe is worth going through at least twice, and then you’re better off skipping it the rest of the time. I do enjoy that the explanation for how the time travel works is done clearly and quickly, and avoids adding confusion to a plot device that is usually convoluted other stories. I also greatly enjoy how the game points out which cliches it could have fallen into, but didn’t, and how it does so without being obnoxious or pretentious.

That being said, it is an overall generic and predictable plot that has been done loads better in the other games, and of the course the villains only manage to be memorable because they’re so unmemorable. And although not totally devoid of it, it does lack much of the moral grayness and darker elements that very noticeably makes Fire Emblem one of Nintendo's darkest franchises. I believe the plot has been over-criticized, but I’d also raise an eyebrow if someone called it great.

  • I always found the handling of the supports in this game to be a double-edged sword. It ranges between characters, obviously, but whenever someone is introduced, they tend to give a very “tropey” vibe that seems to establish a single element as the core of their character. However, as you continue to use a character, and start reading their supports, they start losing much of their “generic-ness” and start to become more two and even three dimensional characters. As for how this is a double edged sword, well, and example would help:
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Using Kellam as a very good example, his first appearance is him piping up once in a early conversation, and only a keen-eyed player would notice he was even in the room when the scene starts. When you recruit him, he states that he was apparently with you on the trip there, and despite wearing a heavy piece and conspicuous looking of armor, no one noticed him. His “gimmick” is obvious; he’s a hard-to-spot, nondescript soldier that everyone forgets exist.

Read through his supports, however, and you’ll find that people do know that Kellam exists, it’s just that he’s quiet and accidentally very stealthy, so they occasionally have a difficult time finding him. You’ll also discover that the joke about him being hard to spot is usually played once, if at all, and then they move on to the meat of the conversation. As it turns out, Kellam is surprisingly clever, apparently has a lot of time to himself to just think, and has a stubborn side. His armor is the wrong size, but he doesn’t mind because it was a gift from his village for becoming a shepherd, and he was selfish as a child, but tried to grow out of it. Suddenly, Kellam is a more well rounded character that has more to him than “Nobody can see him”.

However, Kellam is also a knight, a class infamous for being difficult and niche to use in the Fire Emblem series. If a person chooses not to use him, or tries to but he just plain doesn’t fit their playstyle, then the only impression they’ll have of him is that he’s hard to spot by his allies and they often forget about him. And even people who do use Kellam may not find him easy to use with every female character, so there are certain parts of his character and backstory that the player may never discover unless they are informed about them by a friend and/or search them up online. Thus the handling of the supports in Awakening are a double-edged sword.

  • I am impressed by the quality of the overall supports, especially considering their quantity, but although the good heavily outweighs the bad, there are a number of conversations that are just plain crap, and several more that are mediocre. At the very least, I do like that a majority of the conversations do give good reason for as to why these two characters are conversing with each other, and I find many of the pairings to work just fine as friendships.
  • I also find S-Supports to be some of the best and some of the worst conversations in the entire game. It doesn’t help that it ranges from person to person as to whether the “romance” was believable or not.
  • Overall, I consider Awakening to be a fun but flawed game. It has several strengths that always draw me back into replaying this game, but it's flaws are great enough that it takes some time between each playthrough.

Characters

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Considering that this was an Ironman run, I decided not to put all my eggs in one basket. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how competent several units I had rarely used before were.

  • Donnel is honestly not that hard to train. Sure, you have to feed him kills, but that's not all that hard to do. Pair him up with Kellam, and he’s given the strength and defense he needs to survive. Even on a no-grinding run, he was able to get several kills and levels in, with only bad planning and luck on my side leading to his death. This is much easier to do on normal than on hard, for sure, but training him is not at all relegated to optional grinding encounters.
  • I never understood the complaints about Chrom being an average unit. I always take advantage of the fact that he’s forcibly deployed in every level, and it shows. If it weren’t for the fact that Lucina isn’t optional, he would have been a level 20 promote. Needless to say, once he learned aether, I basically just threw him at the enemy opposition, held the L-button, and watched the fireworks fly and the living corpses commit suicide. The RNG wasn’t as kind to him this time around as he was in other playthroughs of mine (I have had a strength and skill capped Chrom before. Take a moment to think about what that means), he was more than competent.
  • Kellam, surprisingly enough, became one of my top performers. He started out with high defense, and by the end of the game, only a defense focused Robin could rival him with who could take a powerful hit. He was also a good example of the upsides of pair-up. The defense and strength bonus he gave his partner was nothing to laugh at, as he seriously made units go from go from weak and frail to competent and durable. He was also a great partner to Cordelia: His strength and defense bonuses helped her tremendously, while her high movement meant that Kellam could be transported to the front lines much earlier than he could have done on his own. And whenever a situation was too risky for Cordelia, she could always switch over to Kellam, who made great use of her speed boosts while tanking the enemy. He usually performs well for me in general, but he did an outstanding job for this playthrough. He promoted at level 20, by the way.
  • Vaike, to my surprise, had actually gained a high amount of skill in his level ups. This was kind-of shocking to me, honestly, as my biggest complaint about most axe users in this series is their lack of skill and seeming inability to actually hit the enemy. Not to mention that his high strength and speed meant that his survival was based on delivering a high amount of damage to the enemy while dodging the counterattack, making him worthwhile to use for once. Sadly, though, my second biggest problem with him, his low-to-mediocre defense,  was still there, which meant that he was eventually benched when the enemy strength got too high for comfort. Still, this is the best he’s performed for me in every playthrough I’ve done.
  • Cherche probably surprised me the most. Granted, I kinda forgot about her in previous playthroughs, but considering that Panne as a Wyvern rider (not lord. RIDER) was able to snap several of the later levels in half in my previous playthrough of the game, I aimed to use Cherche this time around. It helped that she had nearly all the stats I was looking for when she joined, so I used her quite frequently. Not only was I far from disappointed about how she turned out, I was actually worried that she could solo the game right then and there at several points (although the reminder of her pitiful resistance and the presence of archers and wind magic quickly put an end to that train of thought). She won about every battle she entered, and was most certainly among my top performers this playthrough. Cherche promoted at level 20, by the way.
    • Side Note: I had previously complained several times elsewhere that Gerome sucked. No longer do I hold that opinion, as I know realise that mistake was not using Cherche. It’s a shame that most of the child characters appear when the game is half over, as he looked like he would be fun to train and use, but alas, despite being used quite often, he never reached his full potential.
  • I’m quite frankly surprised at how balanced Libra was, despite being a master of none! He performs his duty of being a back-up healer astonishingly well, especially since I lost Maribelle early on. I wish War Clerics could use magic in some form besides healing and bolt axes, as his magic stat put my actual magic users to shame, but he more than delivered at completing his duty of being a healer who would have to be in the thick of things. He was durable for physical attacks, and his resistance was the highest to second highest of all my units, only beat by Robin, but only after a certain point. Libra’s performance actually made me more interested in learning about his character, and the few supports I got for him this time around didn’t disappoint. His death was also the most frustrating and sad to deal with, considering it was only a few chapters away from completing the game,  and it was a case of enemy bullcrap. Not gonna lie, it actually kinda made numb to completing the final chapters because he had grown on me so much.
  • I’d honestly say that Gaius and Panne are two cases that show just how great reclassing can be when handled well.
    • For Gaius, you can either reclass him into a myrmidon, a class which legitimately has no downsides for him, or you could make him a fighter, sacrificing some speed to gain a much needed boost in strength, and then promote him into a well-rounded Hero that ensures his sword rank doesn’t go to waste. I’ve actually had a playthrough where he became the MVP after following this path, and he performed admirably here.
    • As for Panne, making her a thief gives her both locktouch, which is useful when you need a spare thief, and Movement +1, which is invaluable to everyone, but it specifically helps her to become a movement queen if you decide to make her a griffon rider for Deliverer, which I did. Speaking of which, she’s surprisingly strong and fast as a Wyvern rider, and she caps at least one stat before hitting level 15 every time I’ve made her one.

Random Thoughts and Observations

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  • I forgot how short the female cast was! It’s hard to tell due to the portraits often showing characters at similar heights, but anytime characters of the opposite gender interacted, I was surprised at just how tiny some of the females where (and conversely, how tall the male cast was. I fully agree with the little tidbit that Kellam is the tallest when seated now)!
  • I really wish there was a way to customize your units armor. It was annoying being flashed all the time by Pegasus riders and (reclassed) female wyvern riders, and I never asked to have Cherche’s butt shoved in the camera as a wyvern lord.
  • Speaking of which, the unit viewer is such a missed opportunity. It's quite obvious that it’s an afterthought in the final game. Where’s the option to see units in their promoted classes? Or reclassed? Why can’t we change the units weapon? It’d be nice to see what those legendary weapons look like, after all. Or what Robins animations with a sword look like. Why can’t manaketes or taguels transform? Wouldn’t it be nice to see their models in action? Where’s the option to see mounted units without their mount, such as they are in cutscenes and the barracks? I could go on, but you get the idea. At least it works for listening to the soundtrack.
  • I am still curious if the dress for female griffon riders has a frilly skirt, or if it's the same as the normal wyvern rider dress, just with extra armour accessories. I’ve only seen Panne once as a griffon rider in the barracks, so I’m curious what the outfit actually looks like unmounted.
  • While the armor for great knights is actually alright, the helmet is undeniably odd, and perhaps even bad. However, the risen version of the great knights… What was the thought process behind that?
  • I have a soft spot for the armor designs for this game. On the one hand they look ridiculous, unrealistic, and impractical, but they truly do look impenetrable, or at least like they’d have high defense.
  • I forged a few weapons on this run, and gave a few special names. Take a guess as to who had each weapon:
    • A throwing axe named “Healer Help”
    • A bronze axe called “The Candyman”
    • A bronze sword named “Lugaru”
    • Two “Training Bows”
    • One “Training Lance"
    • A bronze axe called “Courage”
  • This was the most common thing I said throughout the whole playthrough.
  • I didn’t know Griffon riders did a flip if their second attack kills the enemy.
  • I also didn’t know that War Clerics had a Sonic the Hedgehog spinning roll as one of their attacks.
  • You know, a Taguel warren was very much a missed opportunity for a unique, underground level that could have done wonders for the worldbuilding and lore.
  • Speaking of which, Taguel Risen (or is it Risen Taguel?) need to be a thing.
  • I didn’t know that Grima does a backflip to dodge.
  • I also didn't know Grima could shoot expiration at himself without getting hurt (i.e Chrom dashed to the other side of the battle screen, flipping which side the attack comes from) It was weird seeing Grima cast expiration, towards his neck.

This took much longer than I thought it would to write, by the way.

I also would have given my final turn count and how many battles/kills everyone got, but my phone sucks and the pictures/videos took up too much space, so I had to delete them.

I'd actually written off Gaius as a character in my no grind Hard run because he's a worse version of Lon'Qu (who did the same things Gaius did except he wasn't as frail and didn't have locktouch) but I might revisit that assumption after seeing how you handled his reclassing. I'll for sure come back to this and test it out

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12 minutes ago, Ashpho said:

I'd actually written off Gaius as a character in my no grind Hard run because he's a worse version of Lon'Qu (who did the same things Gaius did except he wasn't as frail and didn't have locktouch) but I might revisit that assumption after seeing how you handled his reclassing. I'll for sure come back to this and test it out

Yeah, Gauis takes some time to get going, but once he reclasses, he really shines. As I said, making him a myrmidon legitimately has no downsides for him, and although he looses some speed as a fighter, he gains a significant boost of strength to compensate. I found him to be an extremely balanced and versatile Hero once we becomes one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very interesting, interesting indeed. I might try an ironman run as well someday. However, I’m currently on a ghost of a blade run. 

 

 

For those curious, ghost of a blade  run is a challenge that I made myself. There are only three rules to this run. 

 

1 - By the endgame, your entire deployed army must consist of four classes - Swordmaster, Hero, Assassin, and Trickster. The exceptions to this are Chrom, Robin, Lucina, Morgan, and Olivia. Just remember that if you’re playing M!Robin, be sure your pairings are either Anna, Say’ri, Olivia, or if you’re looking to piss off your best friend, Lucina. These are the four female sword fighters you get without having to reclass them. 

 

2 - Heroes are forbidden to use axes, but Assassins may use bows and Tricksters may use staves. 

 

3 - Before embarking on the final chapter, you must beat the “Ghost of a Blade” chapter using your swordsman army, and attain Yen’fay as your prize. 

 

4 (Optional) - Hardcore mode: ALL of your deployed units must be of the four sword fighter classes, even the five exceptions listed at rule number 1. Furthermore, use of  bows by assassins and staves by tricksters is forbidden. And on top of that, it must be played on classic. 

 

Edited by ElectiveToast
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