Fire Emblem

Ike is considered to be upper-middle tier nowadays. His performance in the last 3 chapters is outright amazing, and the final boss is a pain in the ass without him, unlike Idunn.

I mean it would make sense considering her big super-soldier experiment lore background but TBH I was thinking of Hector.

Edited by ShirowShirow on May 3rd 2024 at 3:19:36 PM

I don't understand why some players are so obsessed with mounted units. Not many stages have strict time limits, so what's the rush?

Canto lets you attack and then retreat out of danger range, making it practical even if you don't give two pennies about level time.

But I mean I feel like most levels should have a time limit... Or should be defense missions where you're constantly being rushed.

It does feel like anyone in the top of a community thinks everyone should think like a speedrunner sometimes.

In the simplest term, more movement equals more strategic options. There are more possible spaces that a unit can reach in a turn.

In Path of Radiance, a group of 4 mounted units can strike at the enemies, retreat and form a diamond formation, then get refreshed by the transformed Reyson. That's an incredible value out of your action economy.

Because on average, his growths are supposed to get him to most of his caps that matter. The journey there can be kind of ass, depending on growth luck, but that's not really an Ike problem. My most recent New Mystery run had a Kris with super garbage growths out of the gate, so despite the well-deserved reputation for being a ridiculous unit, he was a borderline liability for a lot of the Prologue.

And then, as mentioned above, Radiant Dawn Ike has the bases to kind of just win against most stuff for a long time, so that's where a decent portion of his reputation comes from.

Modern FE does a lot to make them quite strong, so I'd say it's more of a 50/50 split, since it's kind of a question of if they get shoehorned into a bad Myrmidon-style setup. Since it's on my mind, I'ma do a quick a dirty list of the ones I've used:

• Very strong: FE1 Marth, Sigurd, Radiant Dawn Ike, Kris, Chrom, Robin, Corrin, Byleth, Claude, Edelgard, Dimitri
• Strong: Hector, Ephraim, Path of Radiance Ike, Alm, Celica, Alear
• Okay, I guess: Lyn, Eliwood, Eirika, Micaiah, New Mystery Marth
• Liability: Roy, FE11 Marth
• Unrated: Old Mystery Marth, Seliph, Leif

Roy is a liability, despite being about the same unit as Eliwood, because his enemies are noticeably higher quality. FE11 Marth sucks because he's too busy visiting every town to actually fight, so he's a total wimp in the end. I debated whether Alear should be Strong or merely Okay, but being the best Bonded Shielder in a game where the strategy completely destroys any difficulty deserves some recognition.

As to mounted units, as Alexa mentioned, more mobility means more flexibility in strategy. Even just on a unit-by-unit movement basis, you can get to that terrain with bonuses or off on the flank of the enemy more easily. Or you can safely disengage the enemy infantry who just attacked you and maybe took more of your HP than you wanted. And that's before taking Super Canto into account. The difference with Super Canto is especially stark in Three Houses, where map design does nothing to stop fliers from completely trampling it. Curved Shot Canto in that game can allow an entire army to go through many maps without ever taking damage (or even being attacked, for that matter).

As far as time pressure stuff goes, Tellius also often has hidden turn limits where if you finish faster, you get more EXP. Or Binding Blade takes away Gaiden maps if you're too slow.

Oh, I see it now. I was just confused because for me, sending out just my cavaliers to face the enemy forces, without waiting for my other units to catch up to them, wasa form of suicide. Yes, even in Genealogy.

I mean, if the cavs have enough stats, then they can get away with that—and the Fire Emblem system inherently lends itself well to allowing units to juggernaut. For an example of a mounted unit who can do that out of the box and just demolish most maps he's on: Radiant Dawn Haar.

Radiant Dawn is one of those games where you wonder what the devs were on, in a good way.

I actually like that the Dawn Brigade were a bunch of weirdo "Square Class, Round Character" types because Part 1 is meant to evoke games like Thracia where you're always on the back foot. And it's not like they lack in strong options anyway since they get Jill and even units like Nolan and Zihark tend to hold up. Of course the flip side of this is that you also get meme characters like Meg but that's pre-Awakening FE for you anyway.

My only real issue with it is that your plucky freedom fighters in Part 1 are now Hero Antagonists at best in Part 3 up against a side that's both morally superior and more powerful (on both paper and reality). No wonder Micaiah becomes a Designated Villain at the end.

But the worst part is that Micaiah is demoted to being Yune's host for Part 4. No wonder we call Radiant Dawn the Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny of Fire Emblem.

Also removing dragon rider weakness to bows and giving them a (very rare) weakness to thunder made Jill and Haar a bit too strong, combined with axes being the best weapon type in FE10.

Edited by Kinkajou on May 3rd 2024 at 7:30:47 PM

Only being weak to thunder magic. In a series where 95% of enemies are physical attackers. In the game where everybody has high resistance. And also the game where thunder is the worst type of magic. Jeez.

Radiant Dawn was definitely over-ambitious in many ways. The ridiculously-big roster, the four-part story, classes upgrading to tier 3, the massive scope of several maps... It's just too bad that it led to several staples of the series to go undevelopped, especially support conversations.

The first half of Part 1 is no joke the most engaging chapters of the game, gameplay-wise. The rest are pretty easy, or make your skull melt while staring at Enemy Phase.

Genealogy's evil cult makes greedy man bloodthirsty! News at eleven.

Guessing the remake will make the Louptians even more cartoonishly evil to warrent their extinction.

Why? The campaigns against them in the past were supposed to be overkill. Manfroy decided that means it's okay for him to overkill everybody else. The old Cycle of Revenge.

Is this one of those "Only Shozo Kaga does it right" things?

I dunno, if they were still around to cause trouble, then it sounds like an underkill to me.

I dunno about Kaga, but I have noticed when he left, the mind control in Fire Emblem got more equal opportunity.

Nah I'm just worried about how the supposed remake will do the Genelogy characters. After how Erika was done in Engage I'm a little worried...

They'll probably just do Slithers 2.0.

What's your complaint with Erika in Engage?

She's kinda over the top a bit. In Sacred Stones Erika was against violence but knew sometimes it was inevitable to fight. In Engage she acts more like how she is protrayed in FEH. It's not just her others like Radiant Dawn's Emblem seem to act a little different. I only say this in the hope the writers can reflect the Genelogy cast properly.

Edited by Mizerous on May 4th 2024 at 7:54:50 AM

There's honestly not much going on with Genealogy cast to begin with.

Edited by RAlexa21th on May 4th 2024 at 8:57:37 AM

Heroes (and by extension Engage) tends to play up certain character traits in its heroes because it's a form of Cast Speciation. Outside of games like Three Houses FE protagonists tend to fit into one or two molds (or three, if you account for the female lords having a different set of tropes).

FE4 is definitely a story where the characters exist to serve the plot rather than the other way around, so outside of adaptations like the manga they're pretty much barebones. After all it wasn't until FE11 where we really start to see what distinguishes Marth from his fellow "wise prince" types.