Fire Emblem Retrospective

[Nester the Lark]

I've been back into Path of Radiance this past week. I figured the longer I waited, the harder it would be to pick it up again.

I have a couple of questions, tho. What's a good way to strengthen weaker units? Also, is it worth leveling up thieves, since they're not really useful for combat?

[nocturnal YL]

Surround a unit with no direct attack (archer/sniper) with units you want to train. Or, if you want to train an archer, surround a melee attacker with strong units with their weapons unequipped so that the archer can slowly deplete the enemy's HP. Also remember to use a staff to heal no matter what (vulneraries are useless, they only heal 10 HP, uses up a turn and wastes a chance to give a healer experience), because otherwise you will have a hard time using the healers later on.

FE9 has two thieves, Sothe and Volke. Do not use Sothe if you plan to play FE10 (Radiant Dawn), as his stats will transfer to FE10 if he reaches level 20 (the max level), but those stats are usually worse than his initial stats in FE10. Volke is somewhat worth it; he will promote into Assassin in a storyline event, making him somewhat useful if you want someone to kill enemies n a single strike (won't work on bosses).

[Nester the Lark]

I guess another question would be, is it worth training weak units? I realize that a character like Titania starts off overpowered, but becomes useless later on. But then is the opposite also true, that a hopelessly weak character becomes extremely powerful if leveled up?

[nocturnal YL]

If you think Titania is weak, well, lol. Jagen in FE1 and Marcus in FE6 are far weaker.

In Fire Emblem, level ups are random. Meaning which stats gets increased is not fixed. Units with lower initial stats tend to shine later, and initially good characters are there to help you in case you can't get the hang on the game yet. You can very well beat the game at Hard without Titania.

So who has what chance to get a +1 in a stat? Look at this table:
serenesforest.net/fe9/growth.htm

Titania is actually quite decent.

Here is a tip on levelling up. Since level ups are random, you can allocate experience to characters you want to level up at the base. If a level up results in 0~2 stat increases, reset the game by selecting Suspend in the map menu (select a blank space on the map) and starting from the start of the chapter. Repeat until you get a decent level up (I'd say 4 stats). Raise one level per character you want to train (watch out for the Bonus Exp you have though), and eventually you'll get this:
(click to enlarge)

If well-manipulated, you can max stats even easier in other FE games:

(click to enlarge)

[8bitretroshit]

That bullshit random leveling system is what's stopping me from playing any other Fire Emblem. I finished the DS remake, but not without ocassionally leveling up some guy who gets loads of +2's stat increase, lose a hero because the AI gangs up on the weakest like a bunch of cockroaches, restart then level the same dude again who then gets two +1's for some worthless stat.

[Nester the Lark]

Here's a "filler" episode of the retrospective all about Fire Emblem merchandise. I guess it was made for the actual anniversary of Fire Emblem last week, but Illiterate Scholar forgot to tell us about it at the Retroware TV forums.

Anyway, I'm still cruising along in Path of Radiance, but I think I'm starting to suffer from a little "Fire Emblem fatigue." I am playing on Easy mode, and I'm tempted to just take my strongest characters (who seem to be nearly invincible anyway) and bulldoze through the rest of the game with them, but that seems like it would be a little too cheap.

[nocturnal YL]

Ahh, awesome.

Well, your situation sounds quite a bit like the average new player. Since you're on Easy (Hard in Path of Radiance is quite easy, so I have no idea what Easy (not in Japanese version) is like), rushing with already-strong character is a feasible idea, although I'd advise against it. When I play FE, I often aim for maximizing as many stats as possible (one of the reasons that I like Radiant Dawn the most), which means trainind low/mid tier characters wiould be best (although from this game onward, trained low-level characters no longer has this distince advantage).

[Nester the Lark]

I can understand the appeal of building up the characters, but it gets a little tedious for me, especially when a character is too weak to train. (I suppose that's what the bonus exp is for.) Plus, when I'm restarting a chapter for the third time, I get fed up and just sent in Oscar or Boyd, who are each nearly invincible at this point.

On a separate note, what's your opinion on Shadow Dragon/FE11? I've heard a lot of people say it wasn't very good, but as a remake of the first game, I wondered if it would be good for a novice player like me. Do people not like it because it's scaled back, or are there actual issues with it?

[nocturnal YL]

Resetting is a core gameplay element to FE. Before every move, you should take a look at the surrounding and see if your weaker character is within enemy range and how many of them can attack you. It is quite typical that you would spend more than an hour to clear each chapter, but that's the standard there.

Make sure you have at least 4 or 5 exceptionally strong characters at the end (I used Ike, Soren, Oscar, Boyd and Rolf... well actually the middle brother is not as strong thanks to his low defense), because the end boss wouldn't be easy to fight despite what previous fights might suggest.

Well, FE11 does not appeal to me, obviously. At one point it asks you to kill one of the team (if you're on Normal) to proceed. And then there are chapters that you cannot access until you have less than 15 units at the time. You also don't have things like support or base conversations that appealed to the Western (and some Japanese) audience. Unless all you want is a modernized FE1 without addiitonal storyline elements and is willing to miss some parts of the game, FE11 is not good.

FE12 then fixed most of these problems, but for some reason it is Japan only again.

[Nester the Lark]

Here's part 4 on Genealogy of the Holy War. There would have to have been some heavy modifications for this to get past NoA's censorship standards back in the day!

I'm up to Chapter 26 in Path of Radiance, but I think I need to take a short break from it. It's long and the reinforcements are relentless. It's kinda demoralizing.

[nocturnal YL]

Ahhh

He should have mentioned how a glitch can cause Celice to marry his sister =P

I was rather surprised to see a Nintendo-published game could have things like that. With a CERO rating of A.

If you're at Chapter 26 now, well, you've done a pretty good job, actually. Things start to get quite difficult and repeatitive there, but it's still far from being impossible. If you have 5 or 6 very strong characters, you should be fine.

[Nester the Lark]

I can only guess what lenience I'm getting from playing on easy mode, because it still seems pretty challenging to me. However, I'm practically hemorrhaging gold, and I have more than enuff bonus exp to keep weaker units up to speed.

Ike, Oscar, Boyd, Soren and Rolf are very capable of handling pretty much any situation, altho Oscar and Boyd are no longer invincible war machines, so I can't Rambo my way thru anymore.

[Nester the Lark]

FINISHED! I have finally finished Path of Radiance! I've finally finished a Fire Emblem game! ;D

Phew! Been working on this for at least a couple of months now. It was on easy mode, but it still took a long time. I did not recruit every side character (I skipped at least two), but I kept everyone alive. I did not beat the Black Knight since I ended up being a little under-prepared for that battle, and I didn't want to replay the whole chapter.

According to the game, my top five characters were: 5) Lethe, 4) Ike, 3) Soren, 2) Boyd, and 1) Oscar. I think Rolf was #6.

You know, I think this is the first game I've played in quite some time that really gave me a feeling of accomplishment after finishing it. It was intense, but I had a good time with it.

[Wildcat]

Yeah, FE definitely rewards the persistent gamer. Congrats! I need to beat Path of Radiance still. XD

[Nester the Lark]

I had started to think he had forgotten about this series, but Illiterate Scholar has finally posted Episode 5: Thracia 776.

In the time since the last video, I have not only finished Path of Radiance, but also Shining Force, and I've reached Chapter 27 of Fire Emblem 7. I think I need to take a break from it, tho. This seems to be the point in the game where I've hit the wall before. For some reason, I can never get all the way thru.