Fire Emblem: Awakening

Blind_Evil wrote:

Alright, decision time. The difficulty settings state normal as being "for series beginners" and hard for "experienced players." I've beaten three Fire Emblem games. Normal or hard?

I went with Hard, and it's about as difficult as earlier FE games. Your casters won't be able to take more than 2-3 hits from anything, your front line guys can handle a bit more. I think if you've beaten 3 other FE games, Hard is something you'll be used to.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I think the fault lies with individual retailers here, if it's really anyone's fault. Some businesses just don't send their trucks out on Sundays. Target stores have them, while Best Buy and Gamestop are saying it'll be there tomorrow.

I just called them and they said that it might be two weeks late.

Yeah, given how widespread the problems seem to be and how consistent each retailer's franchises seem to be about their new dates, it doesn't sound like they messed it up.

And hey, no one's even considering Lunatic?

Hah.

I was told "maybe" Friday. That probably means never for me; since this kind of game probably won't stay in stock, and I won't be back in town for two to three weeks. Alas..

Victory number two for my wallet. (other was the GTA V delay)

Blind_Evil wrote:

Alright, decision time. The difficulty settings state normal as being "for series beginners" and hard for "experienced players." I've beaten three Fire Emblem games. Normal or hard?

I always play Normal first and then Hard. But that's just me. The games have varying difficulty from game to game. So it's hard to know where it will fall on the spectrum, IMO.

I tend not to replay games.

I started on hard, and as ahrezmendi said it seems about on par with the other games in the series. But on the harder end, closer to Radiant Dawn than Path of Radiance. I played the first two missions on normal, and it felt way too easy. There were 3-4 enemies less per map and rarely did they do more than 2 damage per hit. This all makes me wonder what difficulty the journalists played on - I saw a lot of sniveling about the challenge, and if they were playing on normal I have to believe they just don't make critics like they used to.

I was considering Lunatic, but now I'm glad I didn't. That's insane.

One criticism I do have about the difficulty levels: having tried all 3 in the demo, this appears to be the relative spread:

(Easiest)
Normal
.
.
.
Hard
.
.
.
(pretend there's another 30 or so dots here)
.
.
.
Lunatic
(Hardest)

I've got a fair number of friends who found Lunatic waaayy too crazy (I may soon be joining them, Chapter 1 is being a total jerk... they even throw in a guy w/ a Hammer* who can one shot Frederick!), but wish Hard was harder too.

* - Edit: To clarify for anyone new to Fire Emblem, Hammers are Axes that get ridiculous bonuses against armored units, which Frederick happens to be. Against the other party members, it's just an Axe with even worse accuracy than normal (though on Lunatic, that still means a fairly good shot of 10-15dmg.)

Insane... and yet... I think I've almost got Chapter 1 this time No deaths and just the boss left.

Playing on hard, I'm basically having to replay each battle once. Par for the course in Fire Emblem.

Christ though, where did the last six hours go...?

Well, I got through Chapter 1... but Chapter 2 Lunatic of course manages to be even worse.

Steel weapons. On every bloody enemy. In addition to a love affair with that skill that gives -5 Hit and +10 Crit. And steel's third tier this time, not second. Meanwhile, most of the Shepherds are using Bronze* still...

Spoiler:

* Or, hur hur hur, in one case, none at all... that whole sequence is probably a lot funnier in other difficulties Trying to find time and a way to safely throw Bambam his axe with the entire (steel weapon bearing) cast of Dawn of the Dead bearing down on you isn't funny at all.

6 chapters in and I don't think they have feet. Hopefully there's a canonical explanation for this forthcoming.

Oh man, the Xenologue is a huge tease. I want remakes or Virtual Console versions of the old games now.

Stop doing that to yourself, Ferret.

I'm curious what people are spending their money on?
I haven't really had to buy anything yet for most part. Also forge seems little silly since your gear wears out.

Slytin wrote:

I'm curious what people are spending their money on?
I haven't really had to buy anything yet for most part. Also forge seems little silly since your gear wears out.

Yeah, forge would make sense if you could reinforce gear. I've been spending money on what I usually do. Extra vulnaries, staves, etc.

Oh man, I take irrational delight in promoting characters to new classes. I feel like there's a lot of common DNA between this game and Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre -- the permanent death, the class changing / promotion, even the pixel-art look. (And there are games like Sting's Yggdra Union that seem to take inspiration from both.)

This is my first Fire Emblem game, so I don't know what the old ones were like. I know it's a long-running series. Was Ogre Battle inspired by the previous Fire Emblems?

Anyway I'm getting a real kick out of this.

I believe Fire Emblem was one of the first SRPGs, going back to the Famicom days.

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Fe1screenshot.png)

Not sure about what inspired Ogre Battle exactly, but I tend to agree that Tactics Ogre and Fire Emblem are my two favorite SRPGs as well for similar reasons. You should definitely check out the now-underrated Shadow Dragon for the DS when you're done with this game. It's really good, actually. The GBA games are tremendous if you have a GBA or DS Lite.

Oh man, I'm kicking myself for not saving a bit more gold. I ran into the wandering merchant, and couldn't afford the Goddess Icon. Oh well, at least I got the Beast Lance, which I'm sure will prove useful very soon.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Oh man, I'm kicking myself for not saving a bit more gold. I ran into the wandering merchant, and couldn't afford the Goddess Icon. Oh well, at least I got the Beast Lance, which I'm sure will prove useful very soon.

Wandering merchants stick around on the map for a little bit . . . more than one battle, but not forever. So you can try to generate money and come back. I regret not being able to afford a Master Seal one of the early stores was selling; those things are rare.

The one thing -- and seriously, this is the only thing -- that drives me genuinely batty about the Fire Emblem games is that your weapons have a limited number of uses. So I drive myself paranoid about using anything better than the baseline. "What if I run out of uses on this not-rotten-bottom-crappy lance, and can't buy another, and REALLY NEED IT later?! ARGH"

It's almost crippling. Yes, I'm one of Those People who hoard restoratives in rpg's (all rpg's, not just jrpg's; I had characters in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 that were loaded down with absolutely ludicrous quantities of potions and restorative scrolls) and uses them only when absolutely necessary.

I love everything else about Fire Emblem, but that one aspect really just kills me sometimes.

I used to be really conservative about special weapons for the same reason, but the newer FE games have a lot of ways to repair them, so I don't worry so much. Glass Sword? Go ahead and use it down to 1 durability, then shove it in the stash. You'll likely find a way to repair it a few battles down the road.

EDIT: I'm doing the first optional mission now, and I'm reminded of how much I love/hate "chase the Thief" missions. This one even has another twist, so I'm trying to chase the Thief AND level a character!

ahrezmendi wrote:

I used to be really conservative about special weapons for the same reason, but the newer FE games have a lot of ways to repair them, so I don't worry so much. Glass Sword? Go ahead and use it down to 1 durability, then shove it in the stash. You'll likely find a way to repair it a few battles down the road.

EDIT: I'm doing the first optional mission now, and I'm reminded of how much I love/hate "chase the Thief" missions. This one even has another twist, so I'm trying to chase the Thief AND level a character!

I really enjoyed that level, but then again I'm playing on Normal Classic (which I guess is the new level for "babies" now ). I ran a couple of fast characters to the left as quickly as possible and worked it out. And for leveling that character I surrounded a couple of archers and let him solely attack them. Gotta love min/maxing.

DSGamer wrote:

And for leveling that character I surrounded a couple of archers and let him solely attack them. Gotta love min/maxing.

I find it pretty hard to feel sorry for a game like FE on that point.

Ferret wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

And for leveling that character I surrounded a couple of archers and let him solely attack them. Gotta love min/maxing.

I find it pretty hard to feel sorry for a game like FE on that point. :D

I don't feel a bit sorry. Stuff like that or taking weapons away from OP characters and using them like shields is part of the strategy. It's part of the "puzzle-like" nature of the game.

Yeah, I can't be that gung-ho about it. My fastest character, Sumia, will get shredded by the two archers if I just send her out solo. Stahl has good Def, but even he can't wade through 3-4 groups of enemies without support. And Sully? LoL, she can't handle 1v1 let alone 3v1, so no dice.

I think I may need to spend round 1 pairing everybody up with a mounted unit (except with Sumia, she can't be a point character) and move left as a herd of 2-unit pairings.

ahrezmendi wrote:

Yeah, I can't be that gung-ho about it. My fastest character, Sumia, will get shredded by the two archers if I just send her out solo. Stahl has good Def, but even he can't wade through 3-4 groups of enemies without support. And Sully? LoL, she can't handle 1v1 let alone 3v1, so no dice.

I think I may need to spend round 1 pairing everybody up with a mounted unit (except with Sumia, she can't be a point character) and move left as a herd of 2-unit pairings.

I think the Thief has a pretty long route in that level to escape after grabbing the treasure. You can just press left deliberately, or anyway that worked for me.

Found a copy!

IMAGE(http://i.minus.com/ibpY9U3uPO4af4.jpg)

Pumped to dive in after dinner. This is my first Fire Emblem game. Probably going to do Normal-Classic.

BNice wrote:

Found a copy!

Congrats One quest completed, and now a new one begins

ahrezmendi wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

Yeah, pretty much. The new system emphasizes preparation over reaction, which I think I like given this is a tactical game.

So... I just watched a cutscene and nobody had any feet. Anybody else encounter this (first cutscene of Ch. 2)?

That's the scene in the swamp, right? I thought that was in the demo and they were meant to be in ankle-deep water. I do remember noticing that, though.

No, the scene in the Shepherd's Barracks. I initially thought it was an art direction thing, but then I noticed that all the characters are drawn high enough that they *should* have feet. The shadows even draw like they have feet, but they don't! It's freaking me out.

I noticed this in the demo and I found it weird then too. Perhaps it will be explained at some point but I don't know what kind of explanation could make it ok.